Introducing "Lost Connection" Alerts

One of the fun things about being a startup in a rapidly-changing space is that things are always...changing. As we work with more and more customers we learn about new needs, and often come up with new ways to address them. 

Which brings us to today's announcement: "Lost Connection" alerts.

It may not be immediately obvious to you why you'd want to receive an alert when a tracker loses cellular connection. But there are two situations in which we know that our cellular-based trackers will lose connection, and that knowing about it could be useful. Hence "Lost Connection" alerts -- the latest addition to our alerting capabilities (which include location based alerts, temperature based alerts, and others).

AKA "Takeoff Alert"

For some of our customers, knowing that a tracker (and the shipment it's attached to) is on an airplane, and that that airplane has successfully taken off, is useful information. With this alert, a customer can immediately be notified when the flight takes off. In addition, we have a trick to let you know when the plane has landed, too (if you want to learn about this trick let me know in the comments below). As a result, our customers know exactly when their shipment has lifted off and when it has landed, which are often the least-certain segments of a shipment.

AKA "Anchors Away Alert"

The other situation where we know a cellular-based tracker will lose connection is when it is on a ship in the ocean (where, as astute readers will know, there are no cell towers... yet). When a ship is within a few miles from land it will often pick up a signal (and therefore transmit location and other data), but once the ship heads out into the deep the tracker simply logs all data and waits until it sees a cell signal again. So in this scenario, a "lost connection" alert is another way of saying "your ship has sailed!". And since ports are another place filled with uncertainty, this can be a pretty useful alert to receive.

Constantly Innovating

We're always looking for new ways to take surprises and risk out of our customers' lives, so expect to see more non-obvious alerts and analyses. And if you have other types of alerts you'd like to see from the Tive product, please let us know.