GPS canopy tracker

[Hotsauce22 1]

Since buying my own rig I have used a Yepzon one 2.0 gps tracker stowed in the d back. So that if I had a cutaway or my rig went missing while travelling, I would be able to locate it. The Yepzon has worked faultlessly , up until now. The device stopped connecting with the app in February, so it became a brick. I have tried getting support from Yepzon, without any responce. Finally I have hat a responce from a legal firm informing me that Yepzon went into bankruptcy at the end of February this year so their devices and network have been shut down. 
is anyone using a different gps tracker that they would recomend the ad t e we I’ll give a good degree of accuracy ?

[johnhking1 85]

My wife has a tracker for her dog.  It is about 3/4 inch x 1 inch x 1.5 inch.  She can use her cell phone and track his location from any where.  She was overseas last week and could tell where he was within a few feet.  It came with a charger and needs to be recharged every few days.

[billvon 2,713]

6 hours ago, johnhking1 said:

My wife has a tracker for her dog.  It is about 3/4 inch x 1 inch x 1.5 inch.

We have something similar - a Fi - but it only needs to be charged about once a month.

[airnutt 10]

I just received a yepzon from a friend 3 months ago, no wonder it was free

[sfzombie13 319]

i wonder if you couldn't reprogram them to use another number and set up your own cloud for it to talk to.  would be worth a try.  do they have a jtag pinout?

[Hotsauce22 1]

On 3/6/2023 at 8:49 PM, sfzombie13 said:

i wonder if you couldn't reprogram them to use another number and set up your own cloud for it to talk to.  would be worth a try.  do they have a jtag pinout?

That’s a little beyond me. I wouldn’t know where to start

[sfzombie13 319]

open it up and take a picture and post it here.  i can look and see if it has any connections i can tap into on the board.  you may not be able to get it apart without breaking it.  i'll do a search and see if anything comes up.  someone has probably done it if it can be done.

[Chirita 0]

Photos from fccid

[sfzombie13 319]

i don't see a jtag connection but it looks like you could reprogram it if you knew how.  you'd need some way to attach to the chip.  some of those test points may also be the jtag and it just isn't labelled, some companies do it that way.  i'm gonna look it up since i now have numbers to put into search engines.  thanx for the pics.

[olofscience 459]

5 hours ago, sfzombie13 said:

i don't see a jtag connection but it looks like you could reprogram it if you knew how.  you'd need some way to attach to the chip.  some of those test points may also be the jtag and it just isn't labelled, some companies do it that way.  i'm gonna look it up since i now have numbers to put into search engines.  thanx for the pics.

That's a Qualcomm chip there - could be the main chip, or at least the cellular modem. You'd need a few million dollars and some pretty stringent NDAs to get any documentation from Qualcomm on how to program it...

[sfzombie13 319]

Just now, olofscience said:

That's a Qualcomm chip there - could be the main chip, or at least the cellular modem. You'd need a few million dollars and some pretty stringent NDAs to get any documentation from Qualcomm on how to program it...

that's not what you need to program, the os or whatever runs it is what needs programmed.  qualcomm has pretty good documentation on their chips and what the pins do, but they look real hard to get to the way they soldered the chip on the board.  but it's hard for me to tell a lot from a picture because it isn't my specialty, just something i know about.  i've done it before on other devices and could probably figure it out but maybe not.  now going into the qualcomm firmware, you're right, no way to do that i could ever figure out anyway.

[Chirita 0]

Can this one be also fixed with a network provider since the sim is embedded on the motherboard ? Like giving them the IMEI number to activate it on their network!

It uses a M2M-SIM-OnBoard (MFF2 size standard), cannot be changed by the user

[sfzombie13 319]

i have no idea how that works.  like maybe straight talk so that you don't have to pay for it until you need to use it.  i'd give it a try.  i'll bet you can pick those trackers up cheap if the company went out of business. 

[Chirita 0]

Well, i have like 5 of them. 3 unused/inactivated 

[MickPatch 52]

The assets and technology of Yepzon have been acquired by another organisation, they expect service to be resumed for existing devices.

 

Indeed this morning my Yepzon briefly checked in to the system before the connection was disabled again, probably some service testing is being run before a re-launch announcement

[alicethefemme 0]

Hiya, I was just wondering if anyone had managed to get around to hardware hacking the device yet? It does seem like a good idea to make use of a device which has been properly disabled, and surely the most of the hacking would just be to tell it to upload the data it gives off to a new server before the rest of the programming comes down to rewriting server and application software. Would anyone think this could work?

[the.Legend 54]

I don't think many would focus on Yepzon because it's a bit of too much effort. I don't see UART pins on the board, so probably it's all via JTAG (i.e. USB) which is a bit more complex

Thus the only reason to hack into this device for I see would be as a personal challenge, because there are few alternatives that require significantly less effort and skills:

* No-brainer - sew an AirTag into your freebag

* GPS tracker from AliExpress ( additionally you may install own opensource GPS tracking server like OpenGTS)
You can then 3D print a custom pilot chute handle to serve as casing for the device

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006032717925.html
 

folks from Empuria brava already doing something similar:
https://empuriabravarigging.com/gps-handle/

* Build your own device:

https://www.instructables.com/Homemade-Realtime-GPS-Tracker-SIM800L-Ublox-NEO-6M/

use Seeeduino or Adafruit Trinket to save space

 

List is sorted in ascending order by skills & effort required

 

UPD: I just ordered one from China, will do its review keep you posted

Edited November 1, 2023 by the.Legend

[IanHarrop 41]

Another source for GPS in pud

https://www.360skypro.com/products/gps-pud

[Faicon9493 133]

Can a rigger put a tracker in or on the reserve free bag without there being TSO issues?

[Divalent 106]

13 minutes ago, Faicon9493 said:

Can a rigger put a tracker in or on the reserve free bag without there being TSO issues?

Well, why would you want to put it on that? Seems like it would be most valuable/useful to have it attached somehow to your main. (Unless you plan to have 2, with the 2nd on your free bag.)

[Faicon9493 133]

On 11/1/2023 at 2:25 PM, Divalent said:

Well, why would you want to put it on that? Seems like it would be most valuable/useful to have it attached somehow to your main. (Unless you plan to have 2, with the 2nd on your free bag.)

If you have a MARD (Main Assisted Reserve Deployment), the free bag and reserve pilot chute would be attached to the main canopy in the event of a cut away. If the reserve is deployed without cutting away, the reserve free bag and pilot chute could easily get lost.

[the.Legend 54]

So my tracker from AliExpress has finally arrived. Size-wise it looks good - nearly perfect fit for SkySnatch's pipe handle
But turns out this is not a GPS, rather GPRS tracker, just like this review says:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsMKcn3R2tQ
(I wish I've seen it sooner)

Checked its insides and indeed there's no GPS hardware. Technically you may use it along with call capabilities - i.e. look for a canopy by making noise and listening how close you get to the point, but IMHO its not worth the effort of installing it. Will search for something similar, but with real GPS capabilities

 

[ZephyrDiver 0]

Try to look for a long-term standby autonomous car trackers. I use one russian-made "autofon alpha mayak" for 4 years already, mounted in a D-bag. It has several scenarios of work, i use 2 activations - first is every 49 hours beacon sends it's state and approx location via LBS, so i always know about battery state and so on. And second - every 4 hours device only connects to GSM network to receive SMS command for 5 minutes, and then goes offline. So in case of cutaway i just send the SMS command and in the next 4 hours i will receive an accurate GPS location. In this scenario, standby period is about 18 months on one battery block (it's 3x energizer ultimate lithium AAA, soldered in series, easy to repack at home or any phone repair store)