[RaSeNgan]

Well I was watching "Burn Notice" on USA Network and he did something interesting: He wired up a cell phone to a motion detector (same idea as this)

And then I thought to myself 2 things:
1: How hard would this be (in the show he takes apart the phone etc)?
2: Would it be possible in a car?

Simple answer is, in theory it should be pretty easy. You just need:
Prepaid phone with 1 touch dialing
Alarm system of your choice
Solenoid or relay of some sort to push the correct button on your cell phone. (it can just hold the button down, although ideally it would be able to hang up and redial and recall if the alarm sounds more than once)

Sounds pretty neat huh? It could call you when your alarm goes off, or when your car starts, etc etc. Then just grab your friendly bat and run outside

Some cool things/advantages:
1: rewire the mic somewhere close to the driver and you have a bug
2: once the call is made the damage is done, even if they find and disable the phone, you already got the call

Some bad things/disadvantages:
1: Thief finds the phone and has your phone number
2: Battery life of a cheap cell phone is about 7 days... that's a lot of recharging per year (solution = inverter)
3: False alarms if you hook it up to your alarm (deep mufflers, trash pick up, etc)

Anywho, just my random idea, any comments?

 

[tomithy]

Someone either on here or Honda-tech had a write-up about having an old cell phone hooked up and hidden in the car with an inverter. If the car got stolen, you could have the phone company find the location of the phone (and your car).

 

[717teg]

haha this really made me laugh.. people in my town would find the phone and start to use it.. all u would have to do here is leave it on the seat. and trace where the calls are coming from. like a gps in the phone.. haha!

stupid crack heads.

 

[TheGSRGuy]

Many Nextel phones have GPS locators in them, I'm sure this could work to your advantage somehow.

 

[717teg]

^ there we go. lol leave that **** on the seat... or hide it.

 

[TheGSRGuy]

A cell phone battery shouldn't be left in a hot car though, that's the problem. Batteries swell and explode from heat.

 

[NullBoss-Omega]

Uh.. there's this... GPS Snitchz0rz

It's similiar to that.. just more wide scaled. But if you could have something that small.. two phone system, that would be a lot cheaper and easier. Lol Obviously.

 

[vdhkevo]

or you can have a pager alarm.

 

[Radarc]

or you could get low jack...just my .02

 

[BolanosAV]

this is a pretty clever idea...

i hate how people these days just say "you could just buy *insert product here*"

Theres no more creativity in this world i swear....

I like your idea though... so much im gona do it too.

i think ill hook up the mic somewhere too so you can hear whats going on in the car and possibly identify the thief(s)

 

[BolanosAV]

oh yeah and as for charging the phone i think a small solar panel would be better... an inverter is too bulky and they already sell small solar panels with the connections for cell phones...

and a good idea would be to remove the screen so that if they do find the phone they probably wont know what it is and if they do they cant have your number anyways

 

[Radarc]

you may hate that people say "you can just buy whatever" but sensibly i wouldnt trust a cell phone with theives...just as gsrguy said, it runs off a battery and if your cell phone is on all the time, you need to charge that batter at least every 5-7 days if it is a nice phone...sometimes creativity is not the best answer...plus low jack came to us because someone wanted to be creative and create a better anti-theft system

 

[RaSeNgan]

Most of you seem to be missing my point (except NullBoss-Omega)

You walk into a theater, 3 hours later, you find out your car is gone.

You go to sleep, 10 hours later you find your car is gone.

You go to work, 4 hours later you go to lunch and find your car is gone.

The point is, it calls you, so you know EXACTLY when your car is taken, then you can activate your GPS or lojac or whatever. Fast enough thieves can steal and strip, or vandalize, your car before you realize it's even gone, that is what this idea was based on, react faster to the theft.

BolanosAV - thanks for the props, although i dont plan on actually doing it, i think it's just a funny/cool idea

vdhkevo - you have the right idea, a pager alarm sounds right, i've never heard of it though, could you link me?

TheGSRGuy - good call on battery exploding, i have no response.

Radarc - i believe cheap phones last longer batterywise, so it doesnt have to be a "nice phone" to last a week

NullBoss-Omega - yeah thats basically what i'm talking about here, so i guess someone beat me to the punch, haha.

 

[MorningZ]

Why re-invent the wheel? Look into Accutracking, as you can set up "fences" and the system can notify you when your car leaves and/or enters a specific area/range

 

[nate2k5]

this is a completely different concept than the GPS cell phone idea guys who really didn't read the post.

its like cheap version of a two way alarm system

 

[MorningZ]

I did read the post and offered an alternative..... as personally i think the original idea would be a lot of hacking up/customization and doesn't seem very practical

but it's not my car or my idea.. so to each his own i guess

 

[nate2k5]

yah i saw that, i'm just referring to half the posts referring to gps and this not being close to the same thing

 

[wu_yin]

the cell phone diy idea is not that pratical.. just get a lojack or a python gps alarm system ..about 250$ plus it offers a list of features such as telling how many mph your car is traveling, what doors are being opened, where the car is located, starter kill.. etc.. all via email, text or phone call..

 

[boridragon02]

There is an alarm that calls your cell phone, and you can use your phone to disarm it, arm it, remote start, alongside a normal pager remote or standard transmitter

 

[boridragon02]

Asian Wolf GSM Alarm