GPS - Go Home feature

I've read that one should not program your home address into your GPS so that the device will navigate you back home. The reasoning is a thief now knows exactly where you live.....

It seems to me the thief would be pretty stupid to then use the device to visit your home with the intent of cleaning you out. That said, I just ordered a new Zumo (old model, refurbished) and have been thinking of simply programing in the Police Department's address for home. Finding my way home from there is a no brainer.

Am I nuts or paranoid?

Paranoid. This was a non-news story that my parents got all wrapped up in. They programmed the local sheriffs jail as their home, it's just a ,mile from the house.

How does the thief know no-one is home? or maybe you live with a crazy gun-loving lunatic that never leaves the house...

The odds of that happening are very small, but we're humans and we do irrational things like getting our collective shorts in knots over small-odds things like terrorist attacks, too.

It seems to me the thief would be pretty stupid to then use the device to visit your home with the intent of cleaning you out.

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If he were stupid enough to have the GPS in his hand when he showed up or failed to case the place in advance, I think I'd agree. On the other hand, "I stole this $600 GPS from the owner of a $16,000 motorcycle; he probably has lots of other nice things" wouldn't be an unreasonable line of thinking if you're trying to maximize your haul per house burgled.

I don't think doing something that takes minimal effort one time and doesn't cause inconvenience ever again rises to paranoia. If nothing else, it's amusing to think of what the reaction would be if someone did end up going where you sent them.

My GPSes have the home marker placed in the parking lot at a nearby shopping mall where I meet up with people to go riding. If I can hijack your thread, what would be the funniest place you could send someone who stole your GPS? Brothel? Pot dispensary? Proctologist's office?

--Mark

Sewage processing plant. The nearest hangout for the local drug dealers.

SMSW said:

Am I nuts or paranoid?

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Neither one, IMHO. However, do the current crop of GPS's have the capability of being locked so that a password is required to unlock them? If so, there would be no need to hide your home address. On the older GPS that I have, I don't remember ever entering my home address, but I could enter a street address near my house if I needed it to guide me back on an unfamiliar route from my destination.

I downloaded some rally routes once & after leaving the rally input "home" on the GPS. Several hundred miles later the GPS started sending me in an unexpected direction before I realised I was heading to someone else's "home". That 'item' is still in my Basecamp history. So, there may be many more good reasons not to "Home" your GPS.

Just plug in Ur Hometown, or something close.
Who needs the EXACT address to get back to their OWN house??

Home is some place funny.
Work is some place near home.

I don't believe your being paranoid at all, only takes one time being robbed to give you reason to be paranoid.

I saved my hometown in my GPS. If I can't find my house in the town I've lived in for 12 years, I have bigger issues and shouldn't be riding.

Consider this - as remote as the possibility may be - you are parked in a mall parking lot. You come back to your car to find a smashed window and the glove box rifled and GPS gone. While you wait for police to arrive to give you a report for insurance purposes, the thief has already found your house, probably not far away, rung the doorbell and sees no one there and kicks in your door. In and out in a matter of minutes, while you are still waiting for the police to arrive at the mall.

Just enter an address down the street and around the corner if you need a "home" address.

Most GPS until allow an intersection as a destination- use that (one that;s close to the home location)

Bush said:

Consider this - as remote as the possibility may be - ....Just enter an address down the street and around the corner if you need a "home" address.

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It's a dark and stormy night, you've visited several entertainment establishments, you look up on the dance floor and see your neighbor's wife on the pole, you try to talk to her and the bouncer intervenes, you wake up in an alley and don't know where you are but remember where you parked your bike, you punch home on your GPS and end up at your neighbor, the dancer's house, your neighbor comes out of his house and wants to know why you are there at 3AM, next you wake up in your driveway, and have no idea how you got there, or where you left your bike and GPS ........

Just enter your home address you'll always know how you got home.

Tom

It all boils down to what you are comfortable with, just remember . . . C. Y. A.

The same "problem" can also occur with having your car insurance/registration documents sitting inside the glove box. There's your home address right there.

Tom has the best response to this dilemma so far! :clap2:

My phone is my GPS and since it knows who I am and where I live 'Take me home' is easy. My watch also have a Home button for the GPS. I've got an eight-digit password so it would take some time to get by it. And a thief would have to do it in ten tries or less. A fake address would be counter productive for me.

I didn't know that dedicated GPSs were getting password protection. Thats a nice feature.

Thrre are a lot of ways for someone to find where you live. But do what you can to slightly reduce the risk, IMO.

I have my 'Home' set to a nearby intersection--gives me a good ETA (better than to the town center for example).

Colorado provides one registration document without address printed on it for carrying with the vehicle given the very concern that a thief easily has your address. But not all evidences of insurance forms are printed without address. So i carry mine, as well as my BMW keyfob, on my body in a belly pack (not in the bike).

For $3 (iirc) you can get the address from the DMV for a license plate. Ie, theft rings don't need your gps.

You don't need `home ` setup in your gps to have your home found by a thief ....anyone who stole your GPS can turn on your track and see where each ride initiates and ends ... --> home.

Also for those with a spot tracker, consider only sharing a Spotwalla link (never share the spot page link), with Spotwalla set to not show trackpoints within 3 km from your home location--no reason to let others know via a webpage where home is, and that you're a `safe' distance away.

But, I think it's just a good idea to slightly slow down a thief, so I don't have my `home` accurately set on my GPS.

Also consider implications if you have your garage remote exposed on the bike, and it AND your GPS stolen at the same time.

GPS Burglary
gps Thieves use information gleaned from GPS devices stolen from cars parked at public events to locate homes to burgle?

SNOPES

So why is this just a problem now? Why haven't pick pockets graduated up to home burglary within the past 100 years?

I'm pretty sure if someone lifted my wallet they would know where I live and that I wasn't at home. Yeah... every since the drivers license has been around...


Luckily that old dude who is certifiable wack and loves guns lives in my attic where he installed a sniper nest. Otherwise I'd have to load a fake address into Waze, Google maps, my gps, never carry a piece of mail in the car and I'd need to lie to the local DMV. Someone could read my license plate number and find my home address, knowing I'm obviously not home? Or look at my VIN and get the address from the title search...

T_C said:

So why is this just a problem now? Why haven't pick pockets graduated up to home burglary within the past 100 years?

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Thanks for the Snopes link. I usually check that first, but had no idea this was an urban legend. As far a pick pockets. I'm not crime expert, but I do read a lot. It is my understanding that crooks tend to stick to one m.o. - cat burglars rarely carry weapons and tend to be non violent. Pick pockets tend to only pick pockets in crowds - they do not, a a rule burgle houses. Again, I'm no expert, but that makes a certain amount of sense. Electricians tend not to fix toilets, and wall paper hangers do not lay concrete.

As the Snopes article pointed out, these car thieves used the GPS to steal another car. They did not rifle the house. But the GPS was helpful to them.

For the record, just for giggles, I'm programming in the address of the local PD into my GPS. It's only about a mile or two away, and I can find my way home from there.

SMSW said:

Am I nuts or paranoid?

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No, see next post:

TPadden said:

It's a dark and stormy night, you've visited several entertainment establishments, you look up on the dance floor and see your neighbor's wife on the pole, you try to talk to her and the bouncer intervenes, you wake up in an alley and don't know where you are but remember where you parked your bike, you punch home on your GPS and end up at your neighbor, the dancer's house, your neighbor comes out of his house and wants to know why you are there at 3AM, next you wake up in your driveway, and have no idea how you got there, or where you left your bike and GPS ........

Tom

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There, that guy is both nuts and paranoid in deluxe versions.