I’m delighted with the efficiency of Vodafone’s team. Their customer services and their insurance chaps were quick and my new E90 should be arriving at about midnight tonight, Las Vegas time (i.e. 9am tomorrow for you. God, these timezones are challenging..)
My problem is this: My E90 is somewhere. Somewhere in Las Vegas.
WHY can I not find out where it is? When I run Google Maps on my E90, it is able to give me a rough location, within perhaps 1500m (sometimes a lot more reliably) just using the network cell IDs. Add GPS into the mix and it can tell me where I am with a wicked degree of accuracy.
Why can’t I log on somewhere and query this information live?
It’s so annoying.
Some arse is probably fiddling about with it right now and that REALLY ANNOYS ME. I want to be able to remotely lock the device. I want to be able to turn on the camera and the microphone and hear it. Screw that, I want to be able to SEE the picture from the camera.
I want to make the device emit a LOUD LOUD LOUD beeping noise every 60 seconds.
I want to know where it is, what the device status is — battery, cell signal size, everything.
I want to factory reset it remotely so my information is safe.
WON’T SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME?
I’ll pay good money to have an application installed on the phone that does all this.
Such functionality will be provided by Symbian Toys Guardian by Marco Bellino. It’s currently a closed beta, but will launch very soon. And the good thing, there will be a number of different versions, the basic one being free.
Obviously, you’ll have to have it installed before you lose your device, but hey…it’s definitely worth a try, at least on your new E90.
More info here, but keep in mind that it’s still under development (new features may be implemented): http://news.mobile9.com/s60apps/2008/01/24/preview-guardian-3rd-edition-by-symbian-toys/
Vlad’s last blog post..N-Gage is finally live!
And another similar solution (not having the same extended functionality, imho, but still worth a try), already available, from Symbian Guru (the company, not Ricky, lol): http://www.symbianguru.com/phone-guardian-s60-3.html.
I hope these comments were helpful.
Vlad’s last blog post..N-Gage is finally live!
E-Series devices have a standard feature of “remote lock” – you send the predefined text message and the device locks itself. I’m not sure whether it will help with the data on memory card but the device will definitely become useless or will need some kind of hardware unlocking.
Guardian by Symbian Toys will probably do 90% of that (other than the picture and the microphone). Here is a review from Zach (SiMo): http://news.mobile9.com/s60apps/2008/01/24/preview-guardian-3rd-edition-by-symbian-toys/
And here is a link to the page of the developer: http://www.symbian-toys.com/
It’s currently in beta so it’s not available to the public yet.
Other than this one, there’s Phone Guardian by SymbianGuru.com (the game developers, not ricky’s blog) and a couple of other solutions, but they won’t give you gps location and stuff like that (not to my knowledge)
One more application that could let you SEE the picture from the camera is Mobile Web Server, but that would require the thief or the person having the device now to launch it and accept your request, so it’s pretty much useless.
Rita El Khoury’s last blog post..Mobiles & Medicine – Everything Is Under Control
I meant the app developers, not game developers… argh this new N-gage is making me go nuts!
Rita El Khoury’s last blog post..Mobiles & Medicine – Everything Is Under Control
Well, of course there’s txt2lock(.com), which allows you to effectively kill your phone (as far as the neer-do-well who has it is concerned) by SMS. Doesn’t do all the things you’ve outlined, which would be really cool, but it’s neat. I used it on my N73. Unfortunately though, since I swapped my phone they’ve failed to respond to my emails via their contact form asking how I swap it to my new handset! So, a good idea which seems to be badly supported – but it’s still a good idea.
A mobile version of Undercover (http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/) would be very nifty indeed.
Ewan: pop down to the Enterprise Ireland stand (behind RIM) and ask for Frank from YouGetItBack (www.yougetitback.com). Tell him I sent you. He’s got the product you need. He’s also a very funny man.
I believe there are some Nokia/Intellisync products that will do this on an Enterprise level.
PhoneBoy’s last blog post..Mauku on the Nokia N810: Quite A Match
Ewan, I also strongly recommend the Phone Guardian apploication from Symbian Guru
http://www.symbianguru.com/phone-guardian-s60-3.html
When you send the alarm SMS code, not only does it sound a very loud annoying alarm, it also sends back the MSISDN, IMEI and Cell-ID information of where the phone is including network code (so you can see which country it is in).
Sorry to hear you lost your E90 – what a bummer.
Andrew Grill’s last blog post..“The Facebook tool which turns your mobile into a snoop” reports the Times newspaper in the UK
Excellent suggestions! Thanks everyone!
Ewan, after talking to someone from Orange at last weekend’s Over The Air (overtheair.org) I found out that networks are able to find the cellid of the phone anyway. Maybe you should speak to someone at the network you were connected to?
At least you’ll be able to find out if it’s in the same cell as your hotel, or if it’s moving around in a car…