Micro GPS Device to … Track Snail Mail!

By Alex in Gadgets, Hacks & Mods on Apr 25, 2008 at 3:31 pm

GPS
is a nifty and useful tool – I have a TomTom GPS navigation for Christmas that really helped me get around (I get lost easily).

But apparently, there are some really weird GPS tools out there, like this one: the Micro GPS Mail Logger, a GPS tracking device to track your mail as it makes its way through the snail mail system! The device is for "evaluating your delivery service’s reliability and efficiency"

The product costs $695.95, which of course, you risk losing every time you use it. Link – Thanks Greg Bryant!

Neat stuff from the NeatoShop:

ted
Apr 25th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
How do you risk losing it? It’s a GPS.

Yeah, I know, you can always lose something in the mail. But isn’t that the point of putting the GPS in there?

You wouldn’t be using it like that stupid camera bit, just to see what the postal workers do.
Sleestak
Apr 25th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
If by “evaluate mail service” you mean “track whereabouts of wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend” then ok.
Alannah
Apr 25th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Sleestak —

Thats what I thought. Seems more like they’d be sewn into the lining of coats than sent through the mail.
UnreaL
Apr 26th, 2008 at 5:49 am
This is a remarkable example of a flawed concept. GPS devices are horribly bad at receiving signals indoors because they require visibility of the sky to receive the positioning signal. Put it indoors and it won’t work. The older chipsets had problems in urban areas since the tall buildings provided enough sky occlusion and reflection of signals. Even forest trees are a problem. Only the newest chipsets work reliably in normal outdoor navigation, but still fail completely in situations where the receiver is in a paper envelope which is in a canvas bag which is in a cargo container which is in a truck or a postal facility. The GPS has absolutely no chance to track its position there except for a brief time while someone is carrying the postal bag from the truck to the airplane or something.

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