Why is my GPS tracker not behaving like my Waze app and moving on the map almost instantly?
A GPS Tracker does not behave like your Waze app. Your Waze app only needs to receive the signal from the GPS satellites and can right away show you the GPS information on your phone. Also, when you use Waze you are pre-planning a route so Waze knows the route you will be taking which makes it much faster and easier to display.
In order to get the location of your GPS tracker shown on your phone (using our app) or any computer or laptop (logging in via your account with us) there are several steps that must occur as shown in the picture below.
Referring to the above picture let's go through each step:
1. The GPS tracker installed in the car must be 'visible' to at at least3 GPS satellites in orbit. The GPS satellites transmit the coordinates (longitude and latitude) to the GPS tracker.
2. The tracker then uses the SIM inside of it to transmit via cellular network the information about its location, speed, ignition status and any other accessories you have installed on the tracker to the nearest cell tower (Globe or Smart).
3. The cell tower then transmits all this information to our servers that process the information.
4. This information then is sent to you via the internet to your cell phone (our app) or your computer or laptop so that you can see all the information about the GPS tracker including its location, speed, and more.
So as you can see there are a lot of steps that need to happen so that you can see your vehicle on the map. Because of this there is a delay of usually between 30 - 60 seconds. This is a normal delay and actually some other suppliers have longer delays of up to 5 minutes because of different equipment and parameters that they use.
So now you know how GPS tracking works and understand all the steps required. Any questions feel free to ask us: support@manilagpstrackers.ph