Most tracker guides are a list of products. This one is the reasoning behind the list — so you can judge any tracker, including ours.
In July 2026, 2,024 powered two-wheelers were reported stolen in the UK — roughly one every 22 minutes. That figure comes from Police National Computer data compiled monthly by Bennetts BikeSocial, and 487 of those thefts happened in the Metropolitan Police area alone. Sussex, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Kent follow well behind.
The number deserves two pieces of context. First, PTW theft has been falling year on year since 2022 — things are getting better, not worse. Second, national figures are cold comfort when it happens to you at 3am, and a bike parked in London lives in a different world from one parked in Dumfries & Galloway, which recorded zero thefts that month.
If you have decided you want a tracker, here is what actually separates a good one from an expensive one.
| Type | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Hardwired, monitored | Fitted to the bike’s 12V supply by an approved installer. A control room watches it 24/7 and liaises with police on your behalf. Usually Thatcham S5 or S7. | Expensive bikes where the insurer insists. Fitting and monitoring are both ongoing costs. |
| Self-fit, battery | You hide it yourself. Its own battery lasts months. It wakes on movement and alerts your phone — you decide what happens next. | Most riders. No installer, no wiring, and it moves with you to the next bike. |
| Bluetooth tag | An AirTag or Tile. No SIM, no GPS. It reports a position only when someone else’s phone happens to pass near it. | Better than nothing, useless in a lock-up or a van. Not really a tracker. |
A monitored tracker means somebody else watches it and rings you. A self-monitored tracker means it rings you directly. Neither one recovers your bike on its own — the police do that. What you are really buying is the speed at which you find out.
A thief working a residential street has a routine: get the bike moving, get it into a van, and then — once out of sight — look for the tracker. That last step is where most trackers die. Wired units are found by following the loom. Units that broadcast continuously are found with cheap detection kit.
So three properties do the real work, in this order:
Standby figures in this market are quoted generously. A battery quote only means something with its conditions attached: how often the unit woke up, whether it had signal, what temperature it sat at. Cold kills lithium cells, and a British winter is exactly when your bike stands still longest.
Ask two questions of any tracker, ours included: how long does it last while nothing is happening, and how much charge does an actual theft consume? The second question is the one nobody publishes, and it is the one that decides whether the tracker is still alive when the police arrive.
Every GPS tracker needs a SIM, and SIMs cost money. If a product tells you there is no ongoing cost at all, either there is a hidden one or it is not really a GPS tracker. What varies is how much, and whether you are also paying for a monitoring team.
| You pay for | Self-monitored | Monitored (S5/S7) |
|---|---|---|
| The device | One-off | One-off, usually more |
| Fitting | Nothing — you hide it | Approved installer |
| Airtime / SIM | Yearly, modest | Bundled into monitoring |
| Control room | None — you are the control room | Monthly or yearly, and the bulk of the cost |
Only your insurer can answer that, and for a lot of riders the honest answer is no. Thatcham categories exist so insurers have a shorthand for “this security is real”, and above a certain vehicle value most will insist on it. Below that, many policies never mention it.
Worth knowing: the tracker most often recommended to UK riders, Monimoto, is not Thatcham approved either — that is stated plainly in their own support pages. Approval is a commercial and insurance question, not a measure of whether a device works. We explain the categories properly in Thatcham S5 vs S7 explained.
Sentrix is a self-fit, battery tracker in the second category above. Two parts: one hides on the bike, one lives on your keyring. While the key is nearby it stays quiet. If the bike moves and the key is somewhere else — in your pocket, in the house — your phone rings. After that first alert it goes dark, so it stops advertising itself to anyone sweeping for signals.
It is 40 × 40 × 60 mm, has no wiring, and takes about five minutes to fit. It is not Thatcham approved. If your policy requires S5, buy an S5.
A hidden tracker that knows your key, for motorbikes, vans and cars. The app is free; live tracking needs a SIM, so after two free months it is £30 a year. Free UK shipping, 30-day returns, one-year warranty.
See the trackerSold from Britain. If it is not for you, send it back within 30 days.
GPS will not, because the satellites are out of reach. What matters is whether the tracker falls back to mobile-network positioning, which is far less precise — street or area rather than exact spot — but keeps reporting from inside metal. Ask any tracker you are considering whether it has that fallback.
Both are possible. Jammers exist and are illegal to use in the UK. Detection is the more common threat: a device transmitting constantly can be swept for with cheap equipment, which is why trackers that stay silent until they have something to report are harder to find.
Sometimes, and usually only if it is Thatcham approved and professionally fitted. Ask your insurer before assuming a discount — the saving is rarely the reason to buy one.
That is a judgement about what the bike costs to replace and how much the disruption would cost you. A cheap bike that gets you to work is not a cheap loss.
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