AccuTracking Installation Guide: Boost Mobile Phones

(Also applies to all iDEN phones carried by Nextel and other non-US carriers)
Check if your phone is compatible here.

Note: AccuTracking requires a Boost Mobile phone with GPS, and the "50 cents per day" Web Features. Make sure you have Boost Mobile Pay As You Go plan or the unlimited plan.


Overview of Installation Steps:

1. Install AccuTracking on Boost phones

2. Configure Cell Phone Software

3. Online Tracking

4. Monitoring phones from Google Earth

5. Monitoring phones from Microsoft MapPoint

6. Troubleshooting


1. Install AccuTracking on Boost phones

(If you don't want to install it yourself, we have the Boost Mobile phone with pre-installed AccuTracking software and car charger in our Starter Kit sales).

To install on Boost phones, you will need:

(1). A Windows PC, and

(2). A USB data cable, and

(3). Motorola iDEN Java Application Loader (iDENJAL). See below for download links.

(4). The "35 cents per day" Wireless Web Features must be activated for the phone. The plan can be added when you activated the phone at boostmobile.com, or can be added later by calling Boost Mobile customer service at 1-888-BOOST-4U after the phone is activated.

Installation steps:

1.1). Download and install iDENJAL on your PC (Windows XP only. No Mac support).

1.2). Login to your account at http://www.accutracking.com and go to "Account" > "Download". Download AccuTracking installation file for your phone. The installation file is named as "AccuTracking.zip". If you phone model is not listed there, it's not supported. Unzip the downloaded zip file to a temporary folder (See here for how to unzip files), you'll see the "AccuTracking.jad" and a "AccuTracking.jar" file (you won't see file extensions if your Windows Explorer is configured to hide the file extension).

1.3). Power on the phone and connect the phone to your PC with the USB data cable.

1.4). Start iDENJAL on your PC. Click "Download..." button, a dialog will pop up asking for the file to load to the phone. Choose the "AccuTracking.jad" file that you just unzipped in step 1.2) above and click OK (if your Windows Explorer is configured to hide the file extension, just type "AccuTracking.jad" into the dialog and click OK). You should see the progress bar showing the file being loaded to the phone.


2. Configure AccuTracking Software

2.1). From the main idle screen, start AccuTracking on the phone by pressing the "menu" key on the keypad (the key with the popup menu icon), then go to "Games & Apps" > "More" > "AccuTracking" to finish the installation. When running for the first time, the program will ask you to provide a Tracker ID. The tracker ID is obtained from the following steps:

2.2). Go to http://www.accutracking.com/signup.php from your computer (NOT your mobile device) to register. Then login into your account, on "Manage Units" page, choose an easy to remember nick name for your phone, click "Generate Tracker ID" button. An ID will be generated for you.

2.3). Start AccuTracking on the phone. From the AccuTracking main screen, press the "menu" key on the phone keypad (the key with the popup menu icon), you'll see a list of menu items. Choose "Setup...", then move the cursor to tracker ID field (on most phone models: press menu button, you will see a list of input methods: Alpha/Word/Symbols/Numeric/Languages. Select "Numeric"), enter the tracker ID just generated and select "OK". Use "*" key as the delete key.

The Tracker ID field should take EXACT 10 digits. If the phone wouldn't take the whole 10 digits, please see here.

2.4). To access the main menu, on the AccuTracking screen, press the "menu" key on the phone keypad, you will see a list of menu items. To quit AccuTracking, select "Exit".

2.5). Some basic operations:
- Select "Virtual compass" from main menu for a compass.
- "Run in background" command will send the application to background while still running.
- "Setup" command will bring up the option screen to set the sending interval, Smart Sending preferences (see FAQ for more details).
- "Exit" will terminate the AccuTracking application.


3. Online Tracking

3.1). With the AccuTracking application running on your phone, go to an open air place and wait a few minutes until it says 'Latitude Longitude Speed Heading Altitude' and the status line shows "Sent" with a timestamp. Your position, speed and heading data has now been sent to the server and will be sent periodically.

If you see the error message on the screen reads "Cant connect", you don't have the "35 cents per day" Wireless Web Features from Boost Mobile. See the troubleshooting section below.

3.2). Log into http://www.accutracking.com and click "Tracking". You will see the locations and history of your phone.


4. (Optional) Monitor phones from Google Earth

Please see here for how to track your phone in Google Earth.


5. (Optional) Monitor phones from Microsoft MapPoint

If you already have Microsoft MapPoint software version 2004 or later installed, you can monitor the phone locations from Microsoft MapPoint on your PC. Please download the MapPoint Add-in from your "Account > Download" page and follow the AccuTracking MapPoint Add-in Help to install and use it. You'll need to choose "Package 2" in your AccuTracking account setting to use this feature.


6. Troubleshooting

Please see our knownledgebase page for troubleshooting.