Aside from a house, a vehicle may be one of the priciest purchases a person will make. That being the case, most people want to make sure they protect their investment. One of the easiest ways to protect that investment is to know where the vehicle is at all times.

Carlock is a small device that fits into your vehicle’s On-board Diagnostic port (OBD) and tracks your vehicle by GPS. It can send alerts if your engine is started, someone’s tampering with the car, or the vehicle is moved while you’re away from it.

Design

Carlock is a very simple device.

It’s a small, square device, with a 16 pin plug. It has branding on one end of the device; other than that it’s an extremely plain device.

The entire device is about the same length and width as a debit/credit/gift card.

There isn’t much to the design of the Carlock. It’s a very plain device, but that doesn’t matter much because it will be tucked away under the dashboard and won’t be seen.

Setup

Of all the devices I’ve reviewed for the Gadgeteer, this has to be one of the easiest installations I’ve ever encountered.

First, you’re going to locate your vehicle’s OBD port. It’s going to be located somewhere under the driver-side dashboard.

If you’re having trouble locating it, you can use this OBD locator site.

Once you’ve located the OBD port, you plug the Carlock device into it.

That’s all there is to physically installing the device.

Once the device is physically installed, you download the app and create an account with Carlock.

This is also a simple process.

First, you enter the activation code and serial number that came with your device. Then you enter some biographical information and the make/model of your vehicle.

Once that is complete, you’re ready to use the device.

Use

The first time you open the app, it will instruct you to drive for a bit before it can detect your location.

After about 5 minutes, the app should find your location. Your location is updated approximately every 30 seconds while driving, and every 30 minutes while stationary.

For most people, the most important aspect of the Carlock is its security features.

In the picture above, the vehicle is “disarmed”. You can drive the vehicle and you won’t receive any movement alerts.

As you can see in the diagram above, arming your vehicle is simple.

If your vehicle is moved while armed, an alarm on your phone will go off and the app will show your vehicle’s current location and path it took to get there.

Along with notifying you when your vehicle moves, Carlock can also alert you when the engine is started, if the vehicle vibrates excessively, and if Carlock is removed from the OBD port.

Most of us probably wouldn’t remember to always arm and disarm our vehicle; fortunately, the app has an “AutoLock Scheduler” that allows you to set the times you want the vehicle to be monitored.

Perhaps you’re not concerned with security, but rather the safety of those driving the vehicle.

Carlock is also able to monitor speeding, fast acceleration, sudden braking, and harsh cornering. If Carlock detects any of the above, it can send an alert to your phone.

Additionally, the app scores how the vehicle was driven over the previous month and keeps a log of trips and notifications.

This is an excellent way to keep tabs on younger drivers you may have in your household.

Cost

The device itself costs $59.94. That’s not a bad price for a security device with so many features; however, there is also a subscription that must be purchased in order to take advantage of the device’s abilities.

You have two options for the subscription service. You can pay $113 upfront for an entire year of service, or you can pay $9.60 a month.

In my opinion, neither price is too prohibitive; although, the savings for the yearly plan is negligible at $2.20.

Depending on your car insurance company’s policies, you may be able to get a discount for using Carlock.

Conclusion

Carlock packs a lot of punch for being in such a small package.

It’s incredibly easy to install and doesn’t require any upkeep, yet still manages to monitor your vehicle’s security and the driving habits of those using your vehicle.

Whether or not it’s a sound purchase depends on the user.

Is your neighborhood safe, do you have young drivers in your home, or are you looking for an inexpensive way to lower your insurance rates? These are all questions you need to ask before purchasing Carlock. Depending on the answer, Carlock may be for you.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Protectus Technologies, Inc. Please visit their site for more information and Amazon to order.

Filed in categories: Car Gear, Reviews

Tagged: Car accessories

CARLOCK advanced real time car tracker & alert system review originally appeared on on March 27, 2017 at 8:10 am.

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If you are the parent of a teenager, a baby, or you are concerned about the driving of your elderly parent, the following review will probably be of interest to you. Autobrain has developed a device that you simply plug into your vehicle’s diagnostic port and it transforms your car into a connected smart car. Let’s take a detailed look… 

Installation and Setup

Installation of the device itself couldn’t be more simple. You just plug it into your diagnostic port on your vehicle.  Then you download the app, sign up for an account and then take it for a drive!  You will see lights blinking on the device, sort of like the random blinking that happens on a modem.  The directions say that it could take up to 12 hours for the app to sync with your car, but once my account was set up it only took about an hour. I did have to call because my account was partially set up already because of the fact I am reviewing it, so there was a bit of confusion, however, the gentleman on the phone was very helpful and got me going in no time.

Using the Device

There are 4 modes that you can choose from: Family Safety Mode, Teen Safety Mode, Senior Safety Mode, and Safe Baby Mode.  You can switch between these modes using the mobile app (which is free from the App Store or Google Play) and your desktop computer.  The program looks the same on the app and the computer, so switching between them is very easy to do.

All of the modes have settings that you can change to customize them to your specific needs. If you have a teenage driver that you’d like to keep track of and see how good they are driving then teen mode is the obvious choice.  It will give you a driving score that is calculated by taking any instances of speeding, hard braking or hard accelerations and gives you a numbered driving score with 100 being perfect.  The data that you can get from this program is amazing.  For each trip you can see how many miles were driven, how long it took and what the fuel cost was.  I could have used this to charge my kids a fee for having to make extra trips in the car when they forgot things for softball practice back in the day!

For each mode you can set up parameters that will alert you when a person goes outside of what they call a “Safe Zone” that you create.  To create it, you put in an address and then how many miles from that address a person is allowed to go. You will then get an alert on your phone when someone is out of the safe zone. You can actually drive yourself crazy with the amount of alerts you could get from this device.  You can get an alert when someone speeds, when the car starts, when the car is driven between certain hours of the day/night, when it parks, when the car leaves and arrives home school or work, or any other address that you add.

The alerts are almost immediate.  When I would park my car, I would have barely closed the door and I would get a notification that I had turned my car off.  I would probably not set up all these alerts if I was monitoring someone’s driving because it would drive me nuts! Unless it was my grandma because she rarely goes anywhere.

The Teen, Family and Senior Modes are all very much alike, but the Safe Baby Mode is a tad different.  While in this mode, you will get an alert to remind you to take the baby out of the car every time the ignition is turned off.  This may seem like a silly thing, but apparently, this sort of thing happens as evidenced by the news reports, so better to be safe than sorry! You can turn this mode on in addition to any of the other modes.

Roadside Assistance and Car Health Detection

Another great benefit to having this gadget plugged into your diagnostic port is that it can detect mechanical issues with your car.  If an issue is detected, an Autobrain mechanic would contact you and give you an estimate on how much the repair should cost. No more questioning whether or not a mechanic has overcharged you which allows you some added bargaining power at the repair shop.

You also get 5 free tows 35 miles or less each time, free lockout services if you lock your keys in your car, emergency battery boosts if your battery dies (which shouldn’t happen because you would get notified if your battery was getting low), emergency fuel delivery if you should happen to ignore the low fuel alert that Autobrain sends you, tire change services and most importantly, emergency crash response should you get into an accident.

Using the App

The screenshot below is what the main menu looks like on the computer and it’s identical on the phone.  On the computer however, to the right side of this menu is a map that shows you where your car is (see next pic), and where it has been.  It will tell you the places the driver stopped, and for how long. It will allow you to choose the specific day and you can follow along the route that the car was driven.  You can even see where the driver had to brake too hard or accelerate way too fast.

Below is what the map looks like in the browser on your computer. You can see all this on the app on a phone or tablet too, it’s just you can only see half of it at a time.  As you can see on this trip we took in Family Safety Mode, there were 2 hard breaks, and apparently I was speeding 5 times!  Of course, I did all this to “test” the device and make sure I got the alerts  My score is an F because if you speed….automatic F!  Tough crowd.

Share the Love

You are issued a promo code when you sign up (it’s found in your app settings under Free Service) and if you give it to a friend and they sign up, they can get the device with a one month trial for only $19.97, plus YOU get one month of service for free as well.  This is cheaper than you can get it through the Autobrain website, which is $49.97 with a one-month free trial. Also keep in mind that if you don’t like it, you can send it back and get a refund and they will even send you a postage paid envelope! With no risk and no contracts…it’s a no-brainer!

All in all, I am pleased beyond belief with the functionality and the ease of use of this product. It’s like having Onstar or AAA service, with all the control right at your fingertips. The only thing that I couldn’t figure out, and it’s not that big of a deal really is how they compute the driving score.  I tend to be a perfectionist and a fairly good driver, and I get 93’s on my score and there are no alerts that I’ve hit the brakes or excelled too hard. Now that my girls are not really new drivers anymore, I plan on using this device (which they love) instead of Onstar because they are too far away now to rescue them if they have a flat tire or lock their keys in their cars. It’s a wonderful piece of mind for all of us!

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Autobrain. Please visit their site for more info.

Filed in categories: Car Gear, Reviews

Tagged: Car accessories

Autobrain review originally appeared on on March 13, 2017 at 8:07 am.

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