# Overview

A self-hosted, real-time, inexpensive open source car tracker built with Raspberry Pi Zero W, Nextcloud, and optionally Home Assistant.

I’ve had a few earlier tries at car position logging, read those first if you’re interested: Car logger 2.

# Background

Goal: logging and sharing location of my non-connected car, for practicality and fun.

Earlier tries was using a phone, but that had problems. No Android phone will switch back on if it runs out of power without manual intervention.

# Overview

Read part one of Car-logger first, if you haven’t.

I chose to go with outdated Android phones in the previous article. Phones with CyanogenMod and no Google Play. This means that they run all free software, except for some firmware blobs and drivers. No background services driving up data or battery usage, no third party tracking my location.

I tried out Traccar. The app worked fine, but the backend was a big, horrible java thing. Poor UI, overkill for my purpose, and too much for me to get hacking on.