My Car Locator

MyCarLocator started in 2016 while living in New York. Though I no longer use it, it faithfully served its purpose of remembering where I parked my car for years.

Because of alternate side parking I was moving my car frequently. I tended to forget where I parked which led to occasional panic but mostly long walks around familiar streets.

My solution was to build an Arduino powered tracking beacon that would record the location of my car each time I parked.

I used a 3.3V Arduino Pro Mini as the brains of the project. It monitored the cars ignition switch through the cigarette lighter, and decided when to retrieve and transmit my cars location. The Adafruit FONA 808 breakout provided GPS & SMS capabilities, while also conveniently having LiPo charging capabilities.

When the cars ignition turned off, the module sent a packet of data to a server over SMS which included cars coordinates and the modules remaining battery life. The data was stored in a database and could be retrieved anywhere online. Each week I would use the website to recall the last location I parked my car.

The module was small, and easily fit under my seat, and meant I never really had to mess with it or move it around! If you’re interested in the software, you can find it here!