How to Use the Device Locator Service

This service has grown into a set of device recovery tools that allow you to apply your creativity to locate and retrieve the device.

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Basics

The application that runs on the iPhone is designed to be completely hands free. Once it has been installed and the user has logged into the account, it should never have to be opened again. All configurations is done from within the web-application located at https://device-locator.com. This information however, does not get instantly transferred to the application running on the iPhone.

Transferring Information to the iPhone Application

Information changed on the web-application such as poll interval can take some time for the application running on the iPhone to pick up.

The application running on the iPhone communicates with the web-application when it sends location information to the web server. In doing so, it also retrieves the configuration of the application from the web-application. If the poll interval is set to 30 minutes and you switch to emergency mode, it can take up to 30 minutes to turn on the emergency mode.

If you have the device at hand and would like to send its location right away, simply opening the app will trigger it to send its location and retrieve any new information such as the polling interval.

Polling Intervals

The shorter the interval the more power the application will consume. The polling intervals are the maximum amount of time before the device's location will be sent. It is OK to receive locations +/- 10 minutes from what is selected.

There are multiple ways to configure the polling intervals. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. You should always use a timed interval. The stand alone interval "Cell Tower Switch Only," will only trigger when the phone is in motion. If you lose your phone, turning on "Emergency Mode" is not guaranteed to be picked up by the app if the phone is not moving. Ideally the "30 Mins + Tower Switch" should be sufficient. Some people however experience excessive location updates which reduces battery life. We have found out that this happens because the user lives on the border of two cell towers. The phone will switch between two cell towers constantly and the app will send many location updates. For these users they can opt to use just the "30 Mins" update interval.

When you are not using the "Tower Switch" intervals (intervals that do not have the wording "Tower Switch"), manually closing the application from the Multitasking Bar will disable the application until it is launched again. The application will survive restarts if it is in the multitasking bar. If "Tower Switch" is enabled, the application will revive itself when a tower switch occurs even when the application has been manually removed from the multitasking bar.

Sending a Message to the Device

The application allows you to send a push notification to the registered device. If your device has properly registered for push notification, you will see a "Push Msg" link after you login. From this link you can send a message to the device and select the type of sound the message will make.

If you do not see the "Push Msg" link after you login, this means that your application was not setup properly to do push notification. Please ensure that you have enabled push notification from the settings menu. Push notification was added in version 0.9.3.

Audible Alarm

You can enable an audible alarm which will get triggered within approximately 15 seconds. This alarm only works if push notification was been setup properly.

If you see the message "Push Not Available" in the "Alarm" column, push notification was not been setup properly. Please ensure that you have enabled push notification from the settings menu and that you are using the newest version from the App Store.

Application Lock

You have the ability to lock the application running on the iPhone from the web-application. If you have setup the application properly, you can lock it and no one will be able to make any changes to the application running on your iPhone.

The application lock state will only be picked up when the iPhone application sends its location. The amount of time it takes for the new state to be picked up depends on the poll interval.

Google Latitude Integration

Once the iPhone application has properly registered, you can login to the web-application and visit the settings page for that device. In there you can click on the link "Turn On" next to where it says "Google Latitude Integration".

This will send your device's location to Google Latitude every time our service receives an update. Google Latitude can record your location history for a very long time. It can also be used to share your location with friends. Please visit Google Latitude for more information on how to utilize this service.

URL Forwarding

URL forwarding is an advanced feature. If you are not a web developer, you will not be able to make use of it.

The URL you specify will have the parameters replaced with the appropriate values and will be executed each time our service is updated with your device's location. The URL is associated with the device and each device can be configured independently.



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