Cube – Vehicle and Pet GPS Tracker

I’ve been looking for a GPS tracker just like this for my ATV. This GPS unit is the perfect size for placing/hiding it into my Raptor 660R. It has a rechargeable battery. There is an optional OBD-ii, and hardwire kit available, but in my situation the rechargeable battery is the best option. Battery life is expected to be 10-60 days depending on the configuration. I’ve had this installed and running for the past week using all the recommended settings via the app, and the battery is still showing 100%. This GPS requires a monthly service fee starting at $16.50 per month, which I’m not too crazy about. The instructions to set it up are straight forward, but I had an issue with the LED indicator not working. I was still able to set it up. Depending on how this works out, I may end up getting a hardwire kit if I decide to continue paying the monthly fee to keep it on.
Likes:
1.) Compact and easy to hide
2.) Rechargeable battery with decent life
3.) Easy to set up
Dislikes:
1.) Monthly subscription $$$
2.) Micro USB charge port instead of USB-C
3.) Non functioning LED indicator

Overall
I’ll be honest, at sub $30 I didn’t have very high expectations. Multipurpose marketing also didn’t help me in arriving to that conclusion. I had that lingering thought of “what sets cube apart from XX brand or the many other ‘thing tracking’ devices flooding the market”. But I’m glad I was wrong. It’s closer to the area of the car dongles cell cariers sell you. During un-boxing, pulling it out of the box didn’t feel very special, its just a simple cardboard with a window film on the front. A foam with a cutout the size of the tracker, usb charger bundled next to it, 2 document sheets (warranty/manual) nestled at the bottom and a vinyl cube sticker. I’m completely at a loss for what to do with the sticker, why would I want to alert a would-be-thief to the device used or that it is being tracked. I’ll most likely end up slapping onto my desktop.
Features
This little thing is packed with some neat features, actually too many for my tastes. To be clear, nothing I’d refer to is a bad feature but more of a special use-case or targeted for a specific type of user. Th feature in question is referred to as “Virtual Fence” in the cube app. It creates a fence around an area of choice on a map that alerts the user on arrival/departure of the “thing” being tracked. That seems like it could be useful for someone with more than 1 tracker. Possibly to know when a family member arrives to their home safely. I tried it with my tracker and it did notify me that my car left the area but unless its been stolen, no other instance other than my leaving the property would trigger it. It just felt a little redundant. The rest of the features are without a doubt for everyone and anyone. They range from reporting frequency which results in battery consumption, alerts on disconnect/connect from phone/tracker, an SOS button function; where you define 1, 2, or 3 clicks of the button on the back of the tracker to send an automatic message to friends/family, and a Safe Place setting that uses the Wi-Fi networks your phone joins to determine if it goes into battery saving mode. The last thing to note, although this is less of a software feature and more of a hardware.
Cons
I can’t really list much here but there’s 2 things that bother me a bit with this.
1st, there seems to be a lack of information on the network the cube uses. If it’s a single cell carrier then this will likely have bad spots where it won’t report anything. But if it piggybacks on the big 3 carriers in the US, this could be a very viable option for large fleets over expensive systems that use satellite services. But neither of a quick browse of the product detail page nor digging a little deeper into the agreements could I find those details within a reasonable time span. It’s possible I may have overlooked the information but not knowing this at the time of writhing bothers me.
2nd,, based on my limited initial usage, you’ll likely have to update to a powered option. Either the OBD 2 power or hardwired kit. Somewhere in the documentation I read it can last roughly 1 year on a charge, but 4 days in with little usage and I’m at 96% battery left. It doesn’t take sophisticated math to realize its using 1% per day at the current rate which would mean it would deplete in 100 days, 1/3rd of a year. Its using 2 minute intervals and should be in battery saver mode when parked and I’m connected to Wi-Fi. I cold possibly extend that time frame a short amount more by changing it to 5 min intervals instead. Just seems a little less reliable.
Unfortunately, my overall testing has been within the city. I’d certainly like to know how well this does if I take it into rural mountainous areas. This ties back into the first point as, as far as the documentation goes, it uses cellular signals to report it’s location and nothing I’ve seen makes me believe it can use Bluetooth from another nearby device other than your own to leverage a larger network, like some of the other devices that track “things”.
Conclusion
Despite my negative viewpoints with it I’m still optimistic about owning the cube and will sub to it when my trial ends. Within city testing, which is typically where my car stays, this works phenomenally. As long as you live in an area with good cell coverage or a fair population, you will be well off with the tracker as well.

he Cube GPS Tracker is an interesting device. It’s a tiny black rectangular shaped device with a location for straps on either end. If it did not state “GPS” in bold letters, you would not know what it is and one could confuse it for a paperweight. The design is very minimalistic, and given that the instructions provided, while wholly detailed providing everything under the roof in operation, missed a critical step – how to turn on the device. Upon opening it, you are asked to charge it for 2 hours using the microUSB cable or any other cable you may have. There is a tiny blinking red dot near the power supply connector that blinks to say its charging. Once fully charged, it stays red. If you aren’t looking for that tiny dim red light, it’s hard to miss the charging status.
The cube GPS tracker uses your phone to do the rest of the install process. The instructions state you to download the app, create an account and then tap the icon to add the cube tracker into your account.
Maybe a rookie mistake, but 24 hours went by before I realized, at no point did I turn on the GPS unit. Every Time I checked the app, the locations showed where I was at. It wasn’t until I left the GPS tracker at home did I realize, it was not on, and the blue dot on the tracker was my current location. Checking the instructions, I noted there was no instruction step for ‘turn on the device’ anywhere in the manual. The instructions do denote how to ‘reset’ the device or use the SOS mode. In both cases, the instructions don’t really state where the button is (for the record it is on the underside). To turn on the GPS tracker, hold the button located on the underside for 10 seconds until you hear a beep.
Now that we got over that little hiccup… I have to say I am in love with this device. I am not new to GPS trackers. Given that two of my cars have OBD2 based trackers from different companies and I have been using them for a few years now. The Cube GPS tracker is not perfect – as an ad-hoc GPS tracker, it is far more flexible than fixed GPS trackers that use the OBD2 port. The flexibility in placement in a car is useful to prevent thieves from finding your GPS tracker. However, the reporting from the GPS tracker is a lot to be desired. There is no speed tracking, speed geo-fence, brake force detection, engine start and stop, mileage or trouble codes to alert you of a problem, things I expect from a GPS tracker if you are to use it in automotive mode. The Cube GPS tracker just provides location and that’s it. As long as you have a battery charge, it will report its location in 1 minute intervals. If you use the live tracking mode to try to find a moving vehicle, it will show you a live location that is 15-30 seconds behind the reality of the actual location until its battery runs out. You can get a OBD2 port connector to power the GPS unit but at that point I’d get a dedicated automotive tracking GPS that has features that you’d want to keep an eye on your teen or vehicle. The Cube GPS tracking when utilized for automotive tracking purposes needs a lot of improvement to be a solid product in this space.
What made me fall in love with the device is not the automotive car tracking feature. It is the general purpose use of a device to track things in your life. It supports various modes, from Pet tracking to personal item tracking. Each of the modes changes the reporting time for your tracker from 1 minute intervals to 5 minute intervals. Of course you may override it at any time.
The Cube GPS tracker use as a car is a bit limited due to battery and reporting deficiencies – but the flexibility of the Cube GPS in its varied use case is far superior to anything I have used before, and far above any Apple Airtag or Tile tracker that uses BLE technology would ever do. The GPS tracker which can be used with bluetooth to pair it with your phone for proximity tracking and also connect to wifi to define safe zones and do indoor and outdoor tracking (when you set safe zones). It’s a go-anywhere do-anything tracker. You can throw it in your bag or put it in your purse, attach it to your pet or hide it in your child’s backpack. The neat SOS mode would alert you if the button is pressed, thus alerting you and your friends of trouble. As long as the device is able to see the sky, the GPS tracker would work, and help you find your lost item or person. The device does use LTE-M which is the new low power, wide band low speed communication technology to allow you to transmit data over large distances, and in this case using the verizon backbone
My thoughts are this.. I love it. I am not a big fan of the stability of the product’s mobile app as it is still not matured and stable. In the time frame I have had it, it has gone through several app updates, and the last one seems to have broken all the features I had written about above. Hopefully this will be rectified soon. As new features are put on and the product stabilizes, this will be a killer product, and a must have. The monthly monitoring costs can add up quickly and is an added expense, but it is not much different from other GPS trackers that I currently pay for on a monthly basis. The overall dependability and accuracy and semi real time location reporting is worth every penny in my book. The battery life is pretty decent, and one can theoretically charge it up once a week (if you use a 3 minute reporting interval) and use it as a safety tracker for everyday life.
Pros:
* Discrete battery operated GPS Tracker – easy to slip in and out of bags, dog harness, cars, etc
* Adjustable reporting time for GPS response
* Perfect discrete personal tracker for everyday use.
* Requires the app to shutdown the tracker – once on, it cannot be shutdown manually.
Cons:
* This product mobile app is still in its infancy and will improve over time with features – at the time of this review, the app has bugs that are being worked out with updates.
* In car tracking mode only provides GPS location. There is no speed tracking, brake force indication, mileage driven or time stamps, or any other metrics – even if you use the ODB2 Port adaptor to power the device.
* As a pet tracker, it does not measure sleep or motion metrics in the app like a dedicated pet GPS tracker would do. Requires a pet collar clip to be purchased separately and does not have the battery lifespan of some of the competing pet trackers.
* No indications of it being on other than a small faint led light when plugged in.
* When in car mode and using “live” tracking, there is a 15-25 second delay between what the screen shows and where the car actually is, this was tracked while being on the phone with my partner as she ran her errands.

The Cube GPS Tracker was just what I needed this year. I was unfortunately the victim of car theft and my backpack that had my tracker was with me. I was at the gym, and the thieves were so good I didn’t even know that my car had been broken into until I examined the passenger door which had been tampered with.
I was able to see the backpack was near the gym and discarded with my tracker.
I was bummed but it is so neat to see how accurate the tracking system is on the maps.
Set up took me like 2 minutes, it’s small enough to store in a discrete pocket, or put on your pet’s leash. Charging at first took a bit but the battery literally can last 2 weeks. Oh and my favorite part is if I lose my backpack in my house I can make the Cube chirp which was cool. Honestly, I don’t want to lose my bag but knowing that I can make it chirp is sort of fun.
This product is one of those items you don’t think you’ll need it, until you do… sort of like credit. When you want credit you can’t get it and when you’re offered credit you don’t want it. I’m so glad I have this in my life for peace of mind.