Zonar, a smart mobility solutions provider, announced the availability of its latest iteration of ZTrak.

It’s a ruggedized asset tracker designed for long-range connectivity in remote, harsh environments. ZTrak is built with GPS, cellular and Wi-Fi technologies, and can withstand temperatures from -40° F to 185° F as well as rain, sleet, and snow.

ZTrak helps fleets fight back against cargo and asset theft. In 2020, cargo theft reached a five-year high in the U.S.

The construction industry alone loses between $300 million and $1 billion to asset theft annually, according to the National Equipment Register and National Insurance Crime Bureau.

As an upgrade from legacy versions, the latest compact iteration of ZTrak shrunk in size from approximately a brick to a golf ball. Fleet operators and managers can easily and discreetly install ZTrak on all high-value assets to monitor locations in the simplest, most cost-effective way. Seamless integration with Zonar Ground Traffic Control fleet management platform provides full visibility into each asset’s entire location path, through a single pane of glass.

This new ZTrak intelligently tracks and records an asset’s location every five minutes, with an upload of six points every 30 minutes while the asset is on the move.

Safety First for Fleets

Most importantly, if a burglary occurs, ZTrak has a new feature that remotely enables Theft Recovery Mode to provide near-real-time pings once every minute, to track a stolen asset in motion or at rest. For budget-constrained fleets, such as pupil transportation fleets for school districts, this is a critical feature to minimize any losses.

“ZTrak has saved us thousands,” said Justin Brands, company fleet manager for Hot Line Construction. “One of our trucks was valued at $300,000 and had $100,000 worth of equipment on board. As soon as the truck was stolen, we were able to track its moment-by-moment location to set up a roadblock and catch the thief before the truck was lost forever.”

Brands added, “This latest release is even more practical, allowing us to track more than just trailers. We plan to use the new ZTrak release on high value tools, materials, and even when shipping items just to have real time updates on their location. It’s remarkable how easy it is to install and that it only needs standard 3x Energizer L92 batteries.”

Legacy asset tracking GPS systems can be prone to lost signals for fleets in any industry, including those that work in underground sites, rural highways with reduced cellular reception, and even forestry operations where trees might hinder the clear view of the sky needed by the GPS.

When the GPS signal is lost, location can only be tracked from the last known coordinates, leading systems to estimate the most likely location, which can create inaccuracies and misinformation.

The new ZTrak is equipped with Wi-Fi and cellular triangulation coverage to provide more comprehensive location resolution capabilities than legacy asset tracking systems. If GPS and Wi-Fi connections fail, the new ZTrak system can now use cell tower triangulation fallback to track assets for more accurate and consistent coverage.

“At Zonar, we understand how detrimental the loss of a high-value asset is for fleets and the impact it can have on their bottom line,” said Nick Grandy, general manager of vocational industrial services at Zonar. “Our ZTrak solution not only improves asset utilization but ensures the security of all assets. It’s unlike any other tracking devices in the field with its compact, discreet design for easy install, and near-real timing location alerts.”

The Next Generation of the ZTRack

Building on the success of the legacy ZTrak, this next-generation iteration has new, advanced features including:

1. IoT-enabled LTE and bluetooth connectivity: Supports LTE CAT M1 technologies to provide widespread coverage while using minimal battery power, whereas legacy systems only have LTE capabilities.

2. Wi-Fi/GNSS/cellular triangulation coverage and Wi-Fi indoor positioning: New capability to enable connectivity beyond legacy GPS coverage by concurrently looking for both GNSS (GPS) and Wi-Fi signals during a location report to ensure location resolution reliability when GPS signals are weakened or non-existent.

3. Deploy-once battery life: With a 10-year battery life averaging two location reports per day, ZTrak can last 2x longer than the legacy ZTrak system. Designed for low-maintenance, ZTrak is now powered by user-replaceable, off-the-shelf batteries.

4. Intelligent battery life management: Built-in balanced, low-power, and ultra-low-power network registration strategies optimize power consumption while providing advanced notification for low batteries in need of replacement.

5. Theft Recovery Mode: New ability to remotely enable near-real-time pings once every minute to track and recover stolen assets.

If you’re also looking for other Zonar products, Work Truck reported on Zonar’s LD TCU. It’s designed to improve the performance and efficiency of light-duty vehicles.