How about a multi-line phone plan that has gps tracking for the kids? You get one of the free phones to hide somewhere on the bike and whatever other phone you want for yourself. Not exactly cheap, and there is a monthly charge, but if it replaces your existing phone plan then that would cut the cost.
I haven't speced them out but if you could track a phone that way it would work. I know that the higher end phones do that for sure but then the price points start to converge. It would still give the thieves some valuable time to get away/disable the phone though.
How far away are you from your bike when it's parked most of the time? An audible alarm may not help much if you can't hear it, but if you're close to your bike most of the time and you know what the alarm sounds like, it could make all the difference.
I'm all for doing whatever is necessary to recover your stolen property, but the old saying is very true. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The vast majority of theft-prevention techniques will be far easier and less expensive than any decent property recovery systems.
What about agreed-value insurance coverage?
Insurance was the big lesson here as well as the realization that someone would want my old bike for whatever reason vs a new bike on the same street. Unfortunately, insurance won't get me that year of my life back fiddling with the machine. I'm kind of invested in that facker now.
Usually the bike would be parked within a block and mostly right out front of my apartment building but I ignore people's alarms all day and I expect they would do the same. By 3 or 4 am the alarm would have to be so loud to wake me up I'd end up being the criminal/nuisance in the neighborhood. That's why I'm not sold on an alarm.
The Phantom on the other hand would ring my cell which is usually not too far from my head (I use it as an alarm as well) as soon as it was moved - on board accelerometer - and I would have known the bike was gone within a few minutes as opposed to seeing it around midnight and noticing it was gone around 9am when I went out to go. Whoever took it was LONG gone by then.
So, parked on the street, I think the only people I can deter are punks with screw drivers and drunks with an audible alarm or disk lock.
But, has anyone actually used a LoJack or Phantom? Most of the reviews I can find of the LoJack are not super happy with it. Can't really find any reviews of the Phantom.
