Category ‘S7’

Thatcham Category S7 comprises of a standalone tracking unit only. They are primarily designed to be fitted to lower-value assets to provide location data as well as other useful features such as driving behaviour etc. They are connected to a manned 24/7/365 secure control room where any alerts generated by the device will result in a direct phone call to the owner of the vehicle.

S7 systems generally include vehicle battery disconnection detection (or sabotage of the tracking unit power supply) and most of the time also include tow away alerts. The tracking units include an in-built backup battery that it switches to in order to remain operational even when its power supply is removed.

In terms of theft, with S7 systems you would generally need to phone the secure control room to report the theft of your vehicle where personnel will then liaise with the police to aid recovery.

Category ‘S5’

Thatcham Category S5 systems consist of a tracking unit plus driver recognition. They are primarily designed to be fitted to higher value, higher risk vehicles and can provide fast proactive alerting to unauthorised movement of the vehicle. They do this by incorporating driver recognition technology.

Driver recognition is a system used to ascertain whether the driver of the vehicle is authorised to drive it. This is done in most cases with the use of a small battery-powered tag that is normally attached to your vehicle’s key or carried on your person.

Driver Recognition generally works like this, once the vehicle’s ignition is switched on the tracking unit will scan to try and find the signal from the tag (the tag is always producing a signal that the tracking unit looks for). If the tag is found all is well, the authorised tag is present and therefore the authorised driver most likely is too. If the tracking device does not detect the authorised tag an alert is sent to the secure control room, after which you will receive a phone call. The call is to check whether a theft has taken place as your vehicle is now traveling without detecting an authorised tag/driver, normally indicating a theft. You would typically receive this call within a couple of minutes. If the owner of the vehicle confirms a theft has taken place the monitoring team will then liaise with and offer professional theft assistance to the police on the ground to aid quick recovery of the vehicle on your behalf.

Compared to S7 systems where you would need to discover and then report the theft, S5 systems alert quickly to unauthorised use or theft of the vehicle (when the tag is not detected). This fast alerting is the difference between the two systems whereby with an S7 device you may not realise the vehicle has been stolen for several hours. S5 systems ensure the fastest response from the monitoring team and the police, as the faster the vehicle can be located the higher the chance of its safe recovery.

S5 systems include all functionality associated with an S7 but with the added benefit of driver recognition.

Category ‘S5+’ / ‘No Tag, No Start’

An unofficial category that many manufactures use to describe pairing an S5 system with automatic engine immobilisation.

No Tag, No Start systems are designed to combat theft by automatically immobilising your vehicle when it’s not in use. Whilst S7 & S5 systems are designed to aid theft detection and recovery of your vehicle after theft, No Tag, No Start systems aim to prevent theft in the first place. They do this by incorporating automatic engine immobilisation, this type of system is generally armed using the same tag as used in the S5 system for driver recognition.

Generally, when the vehicle’s ignition is switched OFF and the tag is out of range of the vehicle (5-10m), the immobiliser will automatically arm, this means your vehicle is always immobilised when you’re away from it. When the tag comes back into range the immobiliser automatically disarms and allows the vehicle to be driven. In the event of a theft attempt, such as with the use of relay attack or key cloning, thieves are unable to start the vehicle as it’s engine is immobilised. This automatic immobilisation process stops the theft of the vehicle in the first place with the tracking system being used as a back-up in the unlikely event the vehicle is stolen by other means (your key and tag are stolen) or it’s towed away.

The operation of this type of system varies from brand to brand with some offering customer-controlled immobilisation with the ability to override the tag system for extra security.