SIM for GPS tracker

Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced SIM for use in a car GPS tracker?

I've been using a SIM from RWG Mobile on the NOW/EE network for several years. It started at a very reasonable £1/month for 500MB of data and then, a year or so ago, doubled in price to a still reasonable £2/month. About 3 weeks ago, it stopped working and RWG's support doesn't respond, so it looks like it's time to part ways.

I'm only paying £6/month for my main mobile with 8GB of data so don't really want to pay something comparable for a very-low use SIM in the tracker. 500MB is ample but it needs to receive SMS (I'm unsure if all data-only SIMs do this). Any suggestions?

In reply to a post by ashdown:

Can anyone suggest a reasonably priced SIM for use in a car GPS tracker?

I've been using a SIM from RWG Mobile on the NOW/EE network for several years. It started at a very reasonable £1/month for 500MB of data and then, a year or so ago, doubled in price to a still reasonable £2/month. About 3 weeks ago, it stopped working and RWG's support doesn't respond, so it looks like it's time to part ways.

I'm only paying £6/month for my main mobile with 8GB of data so don't really want to pay something comparable for a very-low use SIM in the tracker. 500MB is ample but it needs to receive SMS (I'm unsure if all data-only SIMs do this). Any suggestions?

This won't work for your SMS requirement ("EXCLUSIVE UK DATA-ONLY - This Sim card does not support calls, texts, or roaming.") but sharing in case you find an alternative tracker that uses data rather than SMS.

I used to have one from Three from Amazon which was 24 month validity. They have one to 8th Feb 2027 and 25GB (not per month but during almot two years) for £65.. you can get a £24.99 for 3GB to April 2026 too (second option on that page.. I don't know how much data you need for tracker.

See https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CX1VZH2S for an example but note I don't know the seller so not a vouch on that side.

seb

It obviously depends on exactly what traffic there is between you and your tracker. I have a simple GPS tracker that responds to phone calls and texts by sending one text that will contain varying data depending on the content of the text it receives. No other input or output. For this I find a PAYG SIM on the TESCO LITE tariff is perfect. 4p per text with no other costs.

In reply to a post by cjn:

It obviously depends on exactly what traffic there is between you and your tracker. I have a simple GPS tracker that responds to phone calls and texts by sending one text that will contain varying data depending on the content of the text it receives. No other input or output. For this I find a PAYG SIM on the TESCO LITE tariff is perfect. 4p per text with no other costs.

I was thinking something similar, but 1p mobile.

Yes they're well-priced for general use, but you have to top-up £10 every 60 days, which may be a bit wasteful if all you're doing is sending 1p texts. I haven't been able to find anything better than Tesco Lite for just occasional texts. To keep your account open you only need to send 1 text every 180 days - 8p/year.

If you can easily change the SIM / number every 6-9 months get a Lebara (uses Vodafone network) offer sim and when the offer price ends just cancel and buy another Lebara offer SIM on a different number? You probably do not need to but I would use a different email address each time.

Usually they are around £1/month for several months with unlimited calls/text and a decent amount of data usually 5GB-50GB/month.

hotukdeals.com and search for Lebara for the current offers - they generally point to MoneySavingExpert.com if you want to sign up without hotukdeals affiliation links.

Thanks for all the suggestions - much appreciated.

My tracker sends its position every few minutes to a nominated IP address, hence the need for data. I use the excellent (open source / free) Traccar software on a cheap VPS and this provides nice maps showing where the car has been. It uses inbound SMS to set the IP address, etc, hence the need for at least inbound SMS. I think some data-only SIMs don't have a phone number and therefore can't be sent SMS.

The tracker can also be programmed to respond by SMS to an SMS request for its current location and the Tesco Lite SIM sounds ideal if that were the only requirement but I do like the continuous reporting and the historical maps so I need a data SIM if possible. I've used 1p Mobile in the past but the need for regular top-ups became expensive and it was wasteful to have an ever-increasing balance that wasn't being used.

The prepaid data-only Three SIM sounds interesting but I'm not sure if I can program the device if it won't accept even inbound SMS. Lebara looks a good possibility if I can avoid feeling guilty about exploiting their offer!

I am suprised that no-one seems to offer a SIM specifically for use in trackers with a very low data and SMS cap. There's an opportunity there for an enterprising supplier.

In reply to a post by ashdown:

I am suprised that no-one seems to offer a SIM specifically for use in trackers with a very low data and SMS cap. There's an opportunity there for an enterprising supplier.

Vodafone used to sell a pet tracker clip ("Curve") which came with its own service at £1.50/month for the first 2 years, then £3/month.

They have exited this market, and terminated the service, so I have a useless tracker now.

Clearly at the £3 price point, there's not enough money to be made from such a low-revenue product.

£10 every 60 days with 1p mobile makes no sense; you might as well use the standard Lebara £5/month monthly renewing service, which gives you 5GB, 1000 texts, 1000 national minutes and 100 international minutes.

AAISP have a data-only SIM at £2.00 per month plus 1.75p per MB. But I don't know if it does SMS - presumably not. And your usage would have to be less than 170MB per month to be worth it.

I've had a look at the Tesco Lite PAYG tariff and see that it also offers data at 10p/MB without regular top-ups. That may be a little misleading as I've found in the past that charging for data can be on a "per connection" basis, so for example sending a few bytes followed by no more before the connection times out may be charged as if it were a full MB. That sort of charging could be expensive for a tracker that sends a hundred bytes every 5 minutes. Alternatively, if it charges 10p/day if the total data sent in a day is less than a MB, it would be fairly good value. It may be worth getting one and experimenting.

Hadn't noticed that 1p have changed their t&c's since I last looked for a minimum spend SIM, IIRC you had to top up £10 every 6 months, looks like those sorts of deals have been dropped by most.