What is Traccar?

With Traccar you can view defined GPS devices in real-time with no delay.

How is Traccar working?

You need to own a tracker. A tracker is a small device, either handheld (e.g. „Traccar Client App“ using your mobile, mobile tracker „Incutex TK5000“) or fix mounted (e.g. OBD connected devices). A tracker sends its GPS position frequently via GPRS to a portal: Traccar.

Traccar server portal

There are many tracking portals available, for most of them need you to pay a regular fee and, more essential, THEY own your data! With Traccar you can host your portal yourself – and therefore you control and own your data. It doesn’t need a powerful server: A Raspberry Pi is good enough.
I decided to host Traccar on my Synology. That turns out to be a little tricky – for that I share my installation instrutions.

What’s Traccar’s price?

Traccar code is OpenSource and costs nothing. You can use Traccar’s hosting service for a fee or you host it yourself. Its not a big deal doing that!
For the tracker your need to have a GPRS connection – so you need a mobile provider. As the amount of data sent is very small, you can select the cheapest rate. I myself use „Aldi Talk“ with no options. Total cost per year ~10€.

Where do I get Traccar?

Traccar’s homepage: https://www.traccar.org/

Cost when using Traccar

When using Traccar you should consider using a tracker that is still sending on 2g. While 3g is being switched off, 2g (June 2022) is is still in use all over Europe. People use it for technical puposes as fleet management.

I am using the Incutex TK5000. The tracker is customised to send home a geopoint every 100m or if there is a change in the heading of 15°.

Here is an example of the cost from this years journey over the Balkan: