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Dude, Where's My Car? Compass

 GPS-enabled car tracking
  (+8, -2)
(+8, -2) 		  [vote for,
against]

Many (all?) of us have temporarily lost cars in parking lots, small towns, and/or city streets. Yet many (all?) of us now have GPS navigation systems in our cars, and many (all?) of us have similar devices on our persons, in the assorted forms of mobile phones, Palm Pilots, Blackberries or mobile navigation systems.

So, this simple app simply turns the GPS-enabled device in your pocket into a compass, pointing to the place your GPS-enabled car says it is, with the distance in the measurement system of your choice. And if you're lost in the back streets of Rome, it will flip to the route finder option to get back there.

(Now, we do need our backroom boffins to piece all this together, since I'm sure there's no standard protocol for querying cars about their locations, or even for running apps on sundry GPS devices. But all the components required are out there.)

—DrCurry, Oct 01 2007

[link]






       I lose mine all the time. are you surprised?
—po, Oct 01 2007
   

       LtF: "within a few meters" - quite accurate enough to find a car! (You might have to go to the next level in the parking lot, of course, but at least you know roughly where it is.) Save the GSM for finding your car keys.
—DrCurry, Oct 01 2007
   

       I don't think those used GPS - the ones I can recall were based on magic radio transmitters.
—DrCurry, Oct 01 2007
   

       Or a big shiny flag.
—theleopard, Oct 01 2007
   

       Why don't you just use a voice memo recorded (which already exist as keyrings). Then it is a simple matter to say 'Fourth floor, Lot number 23'.   

       The other problem is, if you lose your keys anyone finding them can immediately find / steal your car. With the voice recorder you just choose a another spot, near enough to be able to see your car but not close enough to activate the central-locking.   

       . . . anyway, just a thought.
—Brett-Blob, Oct 02 2007
   

       //A simple system, although less accurate, would consist of a pedometer and a compass log:// Add a cheap MEMS accelerometer, and you've got an inertial guidance system.
—AbsintheWithoutLeave, Oct 02 2007
   

       Noting that Waze now does this, without even asking you.
—DrCurry, Dec 22 2018
   

       That's because development was funded covertly by the NSA, so they can track both people and vehicles.
—8th of 7, Dec 22 2018
   
      
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