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Looking for a little different gift idea this Christmas? Keep Keep Track Track of of ANYTHING ANYTHING .. .. .. WITH WITH TRACKR TRACKR Low Low cost cost AND AND no no ongoing ongoing monitoring monitoring fees fees Last month, we talked about the IoT (Internet of Things) and how it is already a major influence in all our lives, even if we didn’t (or don’t yet) know it. Then a couple of IoT application adverts started appearing in just about every internet page I opened – so much so that I started wondering if they were even remotely as good as they claimed. . . T he first, and major product was a tracking device be interested in them as Christmas presents. They were called (surprise, surprise!) TrackR. There are several certainly cheap enough! models of TrackR but the one getting the most attenOK, what is a TrackR Bravo? tion was the TrackR Bravo. After reading glowing report after glowing report (and As we mentioned, it’s a tracking device for . . . anyeven seeing some videos on YouTube, etc) we decided to thing! They’ve been attached to all manner of “things” get a couple of these devices and give such as wallets, briefcases, purses, mothem the SILICON CHIP treatment. bile phones (although there’s a bit of a After all, if they were as good as they catch-22 there!), pushbikes, keys, cars, by Ross Tester claimed/seemed, a lot of readers would boats, lawn mowers, tablets and note34  Silicon Chip siliconchip.com.au Showing the four colours of TrackR Bravo close to life size (actual diameter is 31mm), the unit is supplied with a small keyring and a double-sided adhesive tab, so you can attach it to just about anything. There is also a smaller, thinner “TrackR Sticker” available, which at 25mm diameter is more suited to smaller, thinner items such as wallets. books, snowboards and skis, clothing, skateboards, expensive toys, luggage – in fact, there is very little that they can’t be attached to. There are even waterproof cases available! And while TrackR don’t recommend it, (they say to use GPS tracking devices) we’ve seen stories about them being placed on kids and pets (in case they wander off). That also raises the possibility of older people too, especially those suffering dementia in its various forms. That’s half the story – so just how are they tracked? Here’s where it gets really interesting! There are two ways TrackRs are tracked. I guess you could describe them as “local” and “remote”. First, the local, is intended for all those things you misplace around the home, office, etc. This is via an app on your smartphone – Android (4.4 and up) or iPhone (8.0 and up), which then pings the TrackR via Bluetooth 4.0 LE (more on that anon) with a range of up to about 30m. If the TrackR is still within range, all that happens is that its location is displayed on a map. If the two become separated (ie, the TrackR has absconded!), your phone lets you know. So if you accidentally leave your wallet in a store, you won’t get far before you are notified. Fortunately, you can turn this feature off, for example, when you’re home – otherwise you’d go mad every time you moved outside the TrackR’s range. What’s the most-often-lost item in the home? The TV remote control, of course. Stick a TrackR on it and if it hasn’t gone walkabout (eg, off to work in dad’s pocket!) and the TrackR is within range, the smartphone app will not only sound a buzzer on the TrackR to help you locate it but also tell you if you’re getting close (remember the old game – cold, warmer, hot, super hot – it works the same way). But even better, it works in reverse too – press a button on the TrackR and your smartphone will ring to tell you where it is hiding! What if you lose both your smartphone and TrackR? That’s the Catch-22 we mentioned earlier. The phone will know where the TrackR is (millimetres away!) but you won’t – because you’ve lost your phone! Disadvantages? There are two disadvantages we see with this short-range tracking. First, having to keep Bluetooth turned on: many phones are notorious battery users with Bluetooth on, so it’s wise to keep that in mind. Second, the TrackR “beep” is very soft and would really only be good indoors. In their specs, TrackR maintain the beep siliconchip.com.au is “up to 92dB” (that’s about the noise level of a truck!) but we believe it was much less than this. Competing against traffic noise or even normal city noise, we don’t believe it would have a hope! Crowd tracking The second method of tracking objects (the “remote” tracking) is really neat, even if (at the moment) a little optimistic here in Australia. It relies on someone with TrackR enabled on their smartphone walking, driving or otherwise being within the 10m range of the TrackR. It then sends a “last known location” to the cloud, while the app on your phone tells you the TrackR’s “Last Known Location”, so you can attempt to find it yourself by going there. Of course, the missing item (with TrackR) might be moving or have been moved elsewhere by the time you get to its last known location. In this case, you’re reliant on someone else moving into range. So that remote control that Dad inadvertently got on the train with this morning may well have passed close to several TrackR users in his travels, and TrackR will report its last known position. TrackR maintain they have over 3.5 million devices already in the field but the majority of these would be in the home of TrackR, the USA. My phone kept on insisting there were 3,377 TrackR users “nearby” (no, they didn’t narrow that down!). But strangely enough, that figure never changed so we are inclined to take that with a chunk of salt, which is just a bit bigger than a grain . . . We believe you’d have to be pretty lucky to have enough users here in Australia for this feature to work really well – yet. But as more and more TrackRs come on line (and as we said earlier, they’re doing an enormous amount of adTrackR Bravo isn’t waterproof but is more than happy being used in a spray-protected area – such as under this pushbike seat. It’s held in place with the double-sided adhesive pad supplied. TrackR could also help you find your stolen car, used in a similar way. And it might also help you find where you parked it in the shopping centre carpark, too! December 2016  35 vertising) as well as offering some very good multiple deals, (such as buy three, get five or even buy four, get four free) this could easily change even in the short term. With Christmas only a few weeks away, we’d imagine that a lot of people will buy multiple TrackRs and keep some but give others to relatives, friends etc. There’s a video (claimed to be based on a true story) of a pushbike being stolen in California and the owner using the crowd GPS function to go to its last known location, then finding the stolen bike in someone’s yard. We included this graphic from NutTag mainly to show the logo at bottom right: it Incidentally, we went to the official clearly says NutTag Australia which implies (but doesn’t guarantee) that NutTag TrackR website in the US to get our does have a local “presence” and therefore warranty, service etc may be easier. TrackR – if you Google “Trackr Australia” you will come up with “TrackR Australia Official”. your phone or your keys with just one NutTag.) The other tracker mentioned, the TILE, is somewhat With a URL of www.thetrackr.co (not .com.au), we think similar to the TrackR but with one important difference it just might be somewhere else! – unlike both the TrackR and NutTag, the TILE battery is Similar products not replaceable, so after a year (estimated battery life) you We would be very remiss if we didn’t mention that TrackR either have to buy a new TILE (at $US25 each) or take adisn’t the only device of this type available. (It was the only vantage of the “ReTILE” service which allows you to swap your dead TILE for a new one at 50% off. one we tested, though). Their website says that in Australia, JB HiFi, Harvey You might see others advertised – in particular the NutTag (www.nuttag.com.au) and the Tile (www.thetileapp.com). Norman and the Apple store sell the TILE but we don’t Less commonly, in Australia at least, you might come know if they are going to offer the ReTILE option. We’ve across the PROTAG Duet, the LassoTag, the Tintag and also seen other local sources online but have no experiFind’Em Tracking. All work in a similar way using Blue- ence with them. The TILE does have a couple of advantages that the othtooth LE (low energy). ers don’t: being sealed, it’s water resistant (to IP5 standard) The beauty of any of these trackers is that they SHOULD work anywhere in the world. Certainly the local tracking – so a shower of rain won’t worry it. It’s not water PROOF will work; we’re only assuming that the distance (crowd) – you can’t attach it to your scuba tanks, for example. But you can attach it to Tessie’s collar (as seen overleaf) and tracking should also work overseas. The NutTag has had a limited amount of publicity but have a reasonable expectation that it will keep working. The TILE comes in two sizes – a miniscule 34 x 34 x essentially does the same things as the TrackR – although 4.65mm, 6.1g model to attach to keys, pets, bikes . . . any(of course!) NutTag claim it does it much better. Unlike TrackR, they appear to have an Australian pres- thing . . . and the TILE Slim which is 54 x 54 x just 2.4mm; ence which should mean better local service and support. designed to fit in your wallet (it’s about the thickness of two credit cards). Similar to TrackR, the NutTag has a replaceable battery. And a postscript: while researching trackers of various Other NutTag features include: Geo-Fence feature, realtime GPS tracking for friends, four weeks historical GPS types, we noted that the TILE emerged as the victor in varifootprints, one year battery life, 50 meter range, separa- ous tests, both in range – around 40m separation compared tion alert on phone app and tracker (ensures you never lose to half this for most of the others and also in hearing range. At left are four colours of the NutTag, while at right are the two sizes of The TILE (TILE Mate and TILE Slim). Both work in similar ways to the TrackR – indeed, The TILE seems to get better reviews. Its big disadvantage is that it doesn’t have a userreplaceable battery, unlike the TrackR and NutTag. However, this makes it more water resistant than its competition. 36  Silicon Chip siliconchip.com.au A common criticism of most trackers is the distance away you can hear them. The TILE was consistently the best at 30m or so with the others ranging down to almost zero, particularly when they had to compete against traffic noise or even background noise outside. Practical tests We only had the TrackR to try out but you can read plenty of tests online. We were using a recent Android smartphone, so after loading the app from Google Play and installing it, we made sure Bluetooth was turned on then opened the TrackR app. To select the TrackR, it’s simply a matter of pressing the small button on it (under the TrackR logo) and then selected the “Wallet” icon. The final step was to register the TrackR so it would receive the crowd GPS updates (what we called “remote mode” earlier). The phone then started searching for the TrackR – which it found easily when the TrackR disc was only a short distance away from the phone. And that’s what it told me – my imaginary wallet was “very close”. I could make it beep if I wanted to, to assist tracking it down. I moved the TrackR about three metres away and told it to search again. This time it reported that my “wallet” was “far away” (which of course it wasn’t!) but I could easily track it down. Moving the “wallet” even further away proved no difficulty for the app, until I moved outside the range (which was considerably less than the 30m claimed – I’d estimate less than half that). Time for a wallet holiday OK, that proved that the “local” tracking worked, so I sent the wallet on a cross-country jaunt. One of our staff members lives about 50km from the SILICON CHIP office so I gave my imaginary wallet to him and asked him to keep it where it could be “seen” (ie, by others running TrackR app) as he drove home on Friday. My app changed to the screen similar to that shown below right . . . and stayed that way for the weekend. This was despite the TrackR tag being driven around at the weekend and then back to work on Monday. The car is now partked only about 15m away (admittedly through three brick walls) but I would have expected the tag to be found by now. It hasn’t been! So it has to be said, the crowd GPS updates are not yet perfect – NYP, as my boss used to say. I mentioned earlier that I thought the expectations of this working in Sydney during such early days of the TrackR were pretty much wishful thinking – I’m sure it will stay that way until there are rather more users so it has a much better chance of being tracked. This is despite the app telling me, still, that there are 3377 users in my area. That figure never changes! Recommended? Given my experience, would I recommend TrackR, (or any other of the tracking devices we’ve looked at here)? The answer is a guarded “yes”, if only because of what they promise as they become more popular. Already they’re great for finding lost or missing objects around the home of office. Just think how many times you have misplaced YOUR wallet, keys, etc! And as the number of users increases (and I suspect rather dramatically some time on or after the 25th of this month – call it a premonition, if you like), I’m sure the crowd GPS function will really come into its own. SC These screen shots show (at left) how you activate the device up to be tracked – in this case, my pushbike. This comes up every time you enter a new TrackR. The centre screen shows what to expect when you’re in the local mode – it tells me I’m very close to the elusive bike (close enough to trip over!). I can tell the TrackR to sound an alarm (OK, it’s more a squeak!) so I can find it. The right-hand screen shows the device when it’s in the “crowd-GPS” mode (ie, not local – it’s well and truly lost!) but in this case it couldn’t find the bike. Hopefully that will all change shortly. siliconchip.com.au December 2016  37 Another “different” gift idea this Christmas? Anti-Card-Skimming Devices T his has absolutely nothing to do with TrackR, Bluetooth LE or any of the other technologies we’ve been talking about in this feature. But we thought we’d make mention of an Australian device which does exactly the opposite – it stops communication! You’d have to be aware of the reports on the news of “skimming” or “sniffing” devices used by crooks (I was going to use a much stronger word!) to read information stored on your credit or debit card – with the sole function of stealing your card information and so steal from you. Until fairly recently, these low-lifes made and fitted false fronts to ATMs etc so that any card used could be read – they even had a camera to record the password as it was entered. With the advent of smart credit/debit cards and “Paypass”, “PayWave” or “Tap&Go” technology, they don’t even have to go that far (besides, they’re too easy to discover). All they need do is walk within 10m (some say 30m) of you and a small transmitter/receiver they carry in their pocket or back-pack interrogates any card in your wallet or purse – and the RFID chip in the card (which you can’t turn off) freely sends back the information they’re after. Sounds far-fetched? It’s happening right now – and it could happen to you! There are plans on the internet (or at least the dark net) to build such devices for a little over $100. A thief could skim a hundred times that in a day’s “work”. While most of the credit card data is encrypted, the card number and expiry date are generally not. You’ve seen the reports on the news about visitors to Australia being caught with hundreds/thousands of blank cards – they’re only blank until written with YOUR data! What the crooks are basically doing is “cloning” your credit card – they use a cheap card writer to put your details into one of the blank cards. Then with a reasonable guess at the store “floor limit” they use that card in a cashless transaction, perhaps dozens of times in a day – all charged to your card! Many people don’t even check their credit/debit card statements, Arguably the best value we’ve found is this 10-pack of RFID Blocking Card Sleeves, available on ebay for $6.85 including postage! The company selling these is Superb Seller and the item number (at press time) is 222061269676 – otherwise, search for “RFID Blocking Card Sleeve”. or if they do, just look for obvious charges they don’t recognise. When reported to the bank, they’re usually reversed after proving they aren’t yours. But if your card statement shows some very low value transactions that you don’t recognise and you’d normally ignore, say $1 or $2, talk to your bank immediately because this may suggest a thief has skimmed you and is just doing dummy runs to make sure it works. To make matters worse, once they have your identity they can then go online and start collecting bits and pieces of information about you – how many people wished you happy birthday on Facebook, for example. There is so much information freely given away every day it’s scary – and it’s what the crooks are relying on. The object is to eventually have enough data to establish your identity so they can apply online for a loan of, perhaps, $10,000 or $20,000 in your name – which you know nothing about. This is called identity takeover – and there have been countless cases of it occurring already in Australia. Countless? The banks never give the true numbers but various estimates put identity takeover and the fraud which goes with it in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of cases each year. That accounts for billions of dollars. And if this hasn’t scared you enough, the same techniques are being used to skim information from ePassports and even NFC-enabled smartphones. The RFID Blocking Sleeves (left) and the RFID Wallet (right) are two of a number of card and passport protection products from a Queensland charity, Scanguard. They also sell anti-theft bags, aluminium cases and luggage locks. The best part: all profits are donated to charity. They will accept your order via credit/debit card – and a twin pack of RFID blocking sleeves costs just $8.95 plus postage. The five pack as shown is $14.95. The blocking wallets range from $29.95 to $79.95 with free delivery within Australia on selected products. View the product range and order via their website: www.scanguard.com.au 38  Silicon Chip siliconchip.com.au Another offering, this time from Scan Blocker, is said to be an active device which is triggered (and powered) by the scammer’s RFID interrogator. Instead of simply blocking the signal, as the other types shown on this page do, this creates an E-field around your cards making them invisible to the sniffer. It also scrambles the sniffer’s signal. Active types are more expensive than passive – this retails for $59.95 but there is a buy one, get one free offer. It is marketed online by Global Shop Direct. www.globalshopdirect.com.au (search for scan blocker). Now you can fight back! There’s been a whole industry set up in retaliation to credit card theft. They’re mainly intended to stop the RFID scanners talked about above. For example, on ebay there are any number of Anti-skimming Wallets and card holders for around $20.00 or so. Or there are individual sleeves into which you slide your card – with the same effect. They’re blocking the transmission of information from your card by electronically shielding it. There are also “active” protectors which emit a 13.56MHz frequency to electronically jam the NFC (near-field-communication) signals that NFC-enabled smartphones and cards use. We saw a demonstration of one of these devices recently where the card was waved over a pay-wave terminal – and naturally, the terminal recognised it. But placed inside either the card sleeve, wallet or active protector, no amount of passing, waving or tapping would allow it to be read. If it works this well close-up on a terminal, it should make your card, phone or passport totally secure. Just remember that the RFID interrogater used by a scammer (from a distance) would have to be a LOT more powerful than that used in a merchant’s terminal. Sleeves are available on line – priced at less than $1.00 to about $20.00; wallets a little more. Active blockers are more expensive, ranging from about $50.00 up. There is quite a lot of debate on line as to whether simply wrapping your cards in Alfoil will do the same thing. We have to say the jury is still out on this – but as a minimum step, probably worth it! We don’t want you to be paranoid – but the crooks really are out SC to get you! Kogan sell the “Korjo” passive Credit Card Defender in a 3-pack for $9.00, again with free shipping. It’s said to block both 13.56MHz and 860960MHz scammer’s signals. See www.kogan.com – search for credit card defender. siliconchip.com.au What is Bluetooth LE? The Bluetooth standard has been around for a while now. It is yet another method of wireless data communication, in many ways similar to WiFi, Zigbee etc. In fact, Bluetooth shares the same frequency band – 2.400-2.4835GHz. Data is split into packets and exchanged through one of 79 designated Bluetooth channels (each of which have 1MHz bandwidth). Bluetooth suffered from one major problem, however: because it was designed for continuous, streaming data applications, it could be quite hungry when it came to power usage. So much so that if Bluetooth is left on in a battery-powered device, battery life can suffer. This led to the development of Bluetooth LE, or Low Energy. It has also been marketed as Bluetooth Smart, Bluetooth 4 or simply BLE. As its name suggests, the key difference between Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy is the latter’s lower (usually very much lower) power consumption. One reason is that BLE remains in “sleep mode” for a lot of the time and only wakes when it is required. This also highlights another difference between Bluetooth and BLE: Bluetooth can exchange a lot of data at a close range. BLE, on the other hand, is intended for applications which are only required to exchange small amounts of data, periodically. Connection times for BLE may be only a few milliseconds, where Bluetooth might remain on for around 100ms. The main reason for this is that BLE has much higher data rates – around 1Mb/s. The development of BLE has spawned numerous devices with, for example, small button cell batteries. And in particular BLE finds many applications in the IoT. Key features of Bluetooth Low Energy include: • Industry-standard wireless protocol that allows for multi-vendor interoperability • Ultra-low peak, average and idle mode power consumption that gives the ability to run for months on standard coin-cell batteries • Standardised application development architecture that leads to low development and operational costs • Allows for some of the tightest security in the industry with 128-bit AES data encryption Bluetooth LE has really come into its own with the proliferation of the IoT along with its Android and Apple smart phone and tablet apps. Devices with Android V4.4 or iOS V7.0 and later is usually (but not always) compatible with BLE. There’s a ready market in consumer applications and devices. For example, you wake up and go for a run with a heart rate monitor that communicates with your smart watch, then listen to music through your shower head. You unlock your doors, set the temperature, turn on the lights and control your TV using the smartphone or tablet you already own. All these wirelessly connected devices are possible – today – with Bluetooth LE technology. You should be aware, however, that having Bluetooth turned on on your phone could mean significantly more battery drain; we found that the phone required charging around twice as much as when Bluetooth was turned off. December 2016  39