Zoombak's GPS Car & Family Locator is a relatively inexpensive GPS tracking solution that lets users lookup the real-time location of their vehicle with the click of a mouse (or by calling Zoombak's 24-hour customer support). Setup is simple and straight forward, and the website is easy to use. The device is well-built, water resistant, uses SiRF's high-performance StarIII GPS receiver, and has an impressive 5-day battery life.

In addition to being able to lookup the location of the GPS, Zoombak's website allows customers to setup "safety zones" and configure custom alerts for each day of the week or time of day. Essentially, this is geofencing with custom alerting capabilities. For example, you could configure your home address as a safety zone, and receive email and/or SMS alerts any time the device enters or leaves your home. Or, you might want to setup a custom schedule for a teenage driver, setting the device to send an alert if the vehicle is driven late at night or enters a certain part of town.

The biggest limitation with Zoombak's GPS Car & Family Locator is that the device cannot be set to automatically send updates on a set schedule; if you want to know where the device is, you must log in to Zoombak's website and initiate a locate request by clicking on "find now". That's fine if you occasionally want to lookup where your car (or the car's driver) is, but it's not enough to report where the GPS has been prior to that moment. Also disappointing was the lack of speed information in the reporting. Since rate of travel isn't reported, there's no way to tell if the GPS is in a car or on a person walking on foot, nor is it possible to see how fast the vehicle is traveling. or configure custom alerts if the car is speeding.

Real-time tracking is available 60-minutes at a time, with location updates sent every 5 minutes. Although you can initiate another 60-minute real-time tracking session as soon as the first one finishes, I would have liked to see a way to track for longer than 60 minutes at a time. For example, if a teenager is taking the car out at night, or driving back to college, it would be useful to track for more than 60 minutes at a time without having to sit in front of the computer, waiting to start another 60-minute tracking session when the first one ends.

I also wished there was a way to configure the device to automatically send location updates throughout the day, making daily summary reports and historical location data possible.

The lack of continuous real-time tracking is likely the result of Zoombak's relatively low monthly service fee of $14.99. Competing real-time tracking devices can have much higher fees, sometimes as much as $60 or higher. Zoombak's device runs on the T-Mobile network, which can be spotty in many parts of the U.S., so it's best to check your local coverage area before buying.

Outdoors Zoombak's Car & Family Locator worked very well, even when stored in the glove compartment. I was especially impressed with the 5-day battery life between charges. Unfortunately, Zoombak's Locator didn't work inside buildings at all, making it an outdoor only locator best suited to vehicle tracking. That said, vehicle tracking worked quite well, even in areas of poor to moderate T-Mobile coverage.

Zoombak's Car & Family Locator is a solid GPS tracking solution that offers basic location reporting for considerably less money than competing solutions. Performance was quite good when used outdoors within T-Mobile cellular coverage. It won't double-up as a personal tracking GPS for people on the go, but it is quite capable for vehicle tracking purposes. Reporting isn't robust enough for enterprise customers, but will likely suffice for casual home users looking for an inexpensive way to keep tabs on the whereabouts of their vehicle (and its driver). Zoombak sells online for around $250 and requires a $14.99 monthly service fee.