Prey: Take device tracking to the next level with Geofencing

You know those collars that zap dogs if they leave a certain area? Even though that is a cruel practice, there is a way you can keep a similar control of your devices. Of course you won't get zapped, but you will always know your devices are where they should be.

These days, your devices or laptops aren’t just a means of communication. They contain your entire life, be it personal or professional. That’s a lot of data in one place, and keeping them safe is a hard task, especially since you usually won’t notice they’re gone until you can’t find them anymore.

Geofencing, a nifty feature that Prey, our device tracking and data security software, uses to monitor if your device is in allowed areas, prompting you with an alert if it has left the area, warning you that something is wrong. Just like the dog... only in a more humane way.

Thanks to Prey’s GPS technology, which allows you to track your devices in real time by using mobile data or Wi-Fi, we can confine your devices to a closed area, empowering you as the owner.

Using the online interface you can determine a circular area of any size where your devices are free to roam, but if they leave this radius, an alert will pop up, telling you that something is wrong and that one of your devices has left your domains, or has jumped the digital fence, hence the name.

While this might sound inconvenient for cellphones, which are constantly on the move with you, this tool can be really useful for work laptops or computers, which are confined in one area and have the most important information, like client data, bank registries and everything related to your line of work.

Using Prey’s interface you can manage all your devices, no matter their OS, brand or model, and once you are alerted, you can then start using Prey’s other functions, such as receiving photos from the frontal camera and tracking it to know who has your device and how you can recover it.

“But can’t just someone turn off the computer and you will never know?” says the random evildoer who is planning to steal your devices. Don’t be so sure, since you can also enable an option to tell you via the interface or email if the device has been turned off for a while.

This turns Prey into an amazing tool to manage your devices and a great ally when you are in charge of hundreds of computers, since realizing something is gone takes longer than managing a couple of them.

With Prey Pro you can even take this to the next level by adding multiple control zones instead of just one, and you can assign any number or devices to a zone.

Think outside the box

Geofencing doesn’t have to be all about security and anti-theft technology. You can also use it to be sure that your devices stay where you want them to be, even within your own institution or home. Just make a smaller zone, like one that points only to the IT department.

Geofencing has many uses, and it is one of the many feature you can try in your devices that has Prey installed.