Hi there, I too, am interested in an ultra-small ultra-low power tracking device; there are hundreds, if not thousands of applications
I’ve been looking at Semtecs LR112 chip, which uses Lora as the wireless tx to send data to a Lora base station; it takes GPS data and wifi signals from nearby routers; once data is received from the chip, the Lora base station sends minimal and secure data (not the full GPS data, to save power) to a cloud decoding service which then works out the device’s location based on the mac addresses of the routers it has found, and/or the absolute minimal GPS data to get a location, GPS location is not worked out on the chip, to save power.
Its a lot more complex than that, but that’s the basic idea
With clever design. I believe this chip could be your answer.
Unfortunately, I don’t have enough knowledge to create something at the moment, but I will be studying it further.
Perhaps the good people at SparkFun could look at this https://www.semtech.com/products/wirele … dge/lr1110with the view of creating a breakout board, so we tinkerers can get to work on something awesome.