In 2010, Chris Herbet and Christian Smith founded TrackR and released one of the first ever Bluetooth Low Energy item tracking devices. TrackR (perhaps a bit before its time) had many of the same features that were later used by other products such as Tile and Apple AirTag--including the ability to crowdsource lost item locations using a network of phones with the app installed. Despite beating others to this space, TrackR failed to gain the same level of market traction and support was discontinued in 2021.
The goal of this project is to reverse engineer and open source the TrackR device protocol to allow the creation of third-party apps that can interact with TrackR devices. This proof of concept uses the Web Bluetooth API.
- Ability to trigger TrackR alert: fully implemented
- Ability to get device information (battery, signal level, etc): partially implemented
- Ability to detect TrackR button presses on host device: not implemented
The proof-of-concept uses a Python Flask server to host a single HTML/JS page that one can use to connect to and trigger a TrackR device. To set it up, you will need to:
- Install Python 3.x
- Install Flask (
pip install flask) - Clone the repo
- Run app.py (
cdto the folder containing app.py and runpython app.py) - Go to http://127.0.0.1:5001/ in a browser that supports the Web Bluetooth API (such as Chrome).
- Follow the directions on the page to trigger your TrackR device
The Dockerfile in this repo builds a Docker container that runs the program
without any concerns about dependencies on the host system.
(No Python/Flask/pip version worries; no pyenv required...)
To build the Docker container:
docker build -t findtrackr .
To run the Docker container:
docker run -p 5001:5001 trackr
# Enter Ctl-C to stop the Docker instance and clean up
To test the binary (which by default listens on port 5001), go to http://127.0.0.1:5001
Note: As of mid-2022, only Chrome and Edge support the Web Bluetooth API. This program will not work with current Firefox or Safari browsers.