LugLoc Luggage Locator | 15-day Rechargeable Battery GSM & Bluetooth Powered Tracker (One Size, 2-Pack Black)

So, I bought two of these. While activating the first I found out that the GSM locator is wildly inaccurate, nothing like the precision of GPS. You will be able to tell what city your LugLoc is in, but not where in the city it is, at least maybe not within a few miles. (My LugLoc was stationary in a location of good cell phone and cellular data coverage-I have other apps which use GSM location which are much more accurate). The Bluetooth connection is temperamental and only works with the iPhone, but not the iPad. The iPad locator will work on the app if you use your iPad, but not the buzzing Bluetooth proximity locator. The Zendesk Bluetooth instructions will tell you about a "green suitcase" which will never appear-the help desk will tell you that the suitcase symbol is red and they don't seem to know what their own instructions say. Further, I activated the first device thinking I had fifteen days of free traces (the obsolete instructions say five free searches), but the NEXT day I get an email from LugLoc telling me my free traces expire in two days, or what would be three days total. LugLocs are bigger than the palm of your hand and are surprisingly heavy. You need a bright light and a magnifying glass to see the position of the tiny "on-off" switch. Charging takes a long time with a short, proprietary plug and cord. And, if you need any help or if you have questions, LugLock help is Email only-there's no phone. To be fair, when you do email them, you get a prompt response.So, LugLocs are expensive, have poor, conflicting instructions and limited email only support, can only locate your bag within the same county, have inexplicably messed up "free traces," take a long time to charge, work fully only with your phone (not your tablet) and can only be turned on and off with magnifying glasses and bright lights. Poor design, poor support, poor directions, bad GSM location accuracy, expensive and hard to use. I put LugLoc in the "good idea, poorly executed" category. I guess that the LugLoc will in fact faithfully tell you what city your bag is in, so that's good and better than no locator at all, so the product will "work." But, I'm pretty tech savvy and I can make the LugLoc work without help, but all the while I was thinking I should not have bought even one of them-two of them just increased the expense and frustration. I certainly can't recommend LugLocs to anyone.Addendum: I was simply perplexed before, but now I'm furious. When I asked LugLoc about the "fifteen days of free traces" they responded to me like I was a stupid kid-they obviously think that "activation" means "turning the unit on to charge it when it first arrives, even though it's not registered, you have not 'activated' it with LugLoc, have never associated the unit with an account, phone or application and have never tested the unit." I had purposely NOT completed any of LugLoc's instructions for activation on purpose to preserve my fifteen days. I did, however, plug both units in to charge when I first received them, and you have to turn the unit "on" to charge it. Apparently LugLoc thinks this is "activation" and they're pretty snippy and condescending about it. Of course, you can't call them to know any of this, so you only get snide emails. I am tech savvy enough to fly large commmercial aircraft and to design software for complex simulators, but I'm apparently not smart enough to communicate with LugLoc. The worst thing about this is that the instructions in the box were completely obsolete and only referred to a number of free searches-they were mute about what "activation" meant or fifteen days. I had to get that from Amazon. So, I started out being mildly perplexed. Now I'm just hopping mad about being patronized. I started out giving the product two stars and conceding that the thing will probably work, but it could be a lot better. Now I just think that no one should bother with these guys or their product.

The Lugloc worked as promised:- Can request that it report it's location anywhere in the world, using SMS traces. It requires the pruchase of 'trace packages', which is acceptable. Since it doesn't have a monthly suscription. Within 3 minutes, I would know if my bag arrived with me.- Bluetooth while in a plane: worked 50% of the time (probably due to interference and obstacles). But it was nice when it worked to confirm the bags made it on the plane.- Bluetooth while waiting in the bag carrousel. Worked flawlessly. When the bag was close to emerging, I would begin to get beeps letting me know the bag was near.- Also used in in my laptop bag when working abroad, so that in case of a lost of stolen bag, I have a better chance of getting it back.- Used only 50% of the battery in a one week trip.The only features I would like to see are a manual trace activation with a button on the device itself, and a tracking mode whereby every X amount of time (maybe an hour?) it would automatically report its location to the app.

PROS:BATTERY - rechargeable and good for several days (mfg says 15, my experience is about that).LOCATION ACCURACY - use of GSM so can be wildly inaccurate, a quarter mile or more, the same as a phone with GPS turned off. Lugloc uses "traces" - you request a location from your smartphone and it tells you - MAYBE (see CONS). Its very slow - 2 minutes or much longer.BLUETOOTH - if your luggage is nearby (30 feet more or less) - like delivered to the wrong room - you can locate it by walking the halls with your smartphone using the rangefinder. Then you only have to figure out how to get in the room. (See update in CONS below.ONGOING COST - annual fee required. These may be dynamic so its hard to predict the cost.CONS:MAYBE - Lugloc seems to shut down (go into airplane mode) any time there is movement - like driving in a car or walking while in your pocket, or rolling your luggage at an airport. It can take a while to come out of airplane mode, and you can't get a trace if there is movement (see photo). This means if someone steals your luggage, throws it in a car and drives away, you can't get a location until after they stop moving the luggage. Since you don't control the movement, there is nothing you can do to help. I've had a trace take over 5 minutes with a perfectly still Lugloc. This feature is not well thought out, and its the primary purpose for the device.BLUETOOTH UPDATE 10-11-15 - to use the Bluetooth feature, you have to login - which can be difficult (as I found out) if their web service is down, or if you don't have WiFi and don't have data service. There is no good reason (that I can think of) that the phone app shouldn't be able to do Bluetooth communication with the LugLoc device without logging in. Minus one more star for this poor feature.SUMMARY:Note that if your luggage doesn't get lost, it is not needed. If your luggage does get lost, I'm not sure - in a hotel/motel mis-delivery Bluetooth is a plus, for bus travel or very long flights long battery life is a plus.SCORING: -3 for movement sensitivity (if I can't get a trace what good is it), +1 for Bluetooth rangefinding, UPDATE - minus 1 for poor Bluetooth (see above).Given all the negative issues, I'm not sure I would recommend this device to a friend, without a lot of warnings.