Tech Thursday: The Lo-Down on LoJack
Question of the moment: What do Subaru, Mercedes and BMW have in common? Well, for one thing, they all use LoJack as their anti-theft device of choice. My other half drives a Forester, and reminded me that we haven’t updated our address with Lo-Jack since moving out of California three years ago, which got me wondering exactly how it works.
I’ve always thought of LoJack as the automotive equivalent of micro-chipping a pet, and I knew it involved a transceiver signal that could be activated if a theft was reported, but it wasn’t until that conversation the other night that I began to wonder where this chip was.
I discovered that I’m not allowed to know. There are 20 possible locations for the transceiver to be located, in any given vehicle, but car owners are not told where they are. This is in case they’re ever in the car when it’s stolen. If you don’t know where the chip is, you can’t tell a thief the location, and they can’t disable it.
I also learned that the transceiver is tied to each car’s VIN. Specifically, here’s what it says on the LoJack website:
Each LoJack System has a unique code that is tied into the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). When a theft is reported to the police, a routine entry into the state police crime computer results in a match of the LoJack System’s unique code against the state VIN database. This automatically activates the LoJack System in your car, which emits an inaudible signal. Law enforcement authorities who are equipped with LoJack vehicle tracking units - in their police cruisers and aviation units - are always listening for a LoJack signal. Police use the LoJack vehicle tracking units to track and recover your LoJack equipped vehicle.
Having a better idea of how LoJack works has made me more confident in the system, but you know what really impressed me? They have a 90% recovery rate of equipped cars. When you consider that there’s a car stolen somewhere in the USA every 25 or 26 seconds, that’s seriously cool.
