Understanding Your GuardOn Alerts: Geofence, Movement, Tamper

An alert is only useful if you know what it means and what to do about it. GuardOn's app sends three core alert types, geofence, movement and tamper, and each one is telling you something slightly different. Here's how to read them.

Geofence alerts

A geofence is a boundary you set on the map inside the app, drawn around wherever your vehicle normally stays, your street, your local area, or anywhere else that makes sense for how you use the car. A geofence alert fires the moment the vehicle crosses that line.

This is especially useful if a car should rarely, or never, leave a specific area unless you're the one behind the wheel. If you get a geofence alert and you know exactly why the car is moving, a family member borrowed it, it's gone in for a service, there's nothing to do. If you get one and you have no idea why the car has left its usual area, that's the moment to check the app for its live location and, if something looks wrong, contact the police.

Movement alerts

A movement alert fires when the vehicle moves at all while it should be parked and stationary. This is often the very first sign that something is happening, sometimes before a geofence boundary is even crossed.

If you get a movement alert and you weren't expecting the car to move, open the app straight away and check the live location. Quick action here matters. The earlier you know something's wrong, the more useful that information is if you need to report it to the police.

Tamper alerts

A tamper alert fires if someone interferes with the device itself, rather than the vehicle moving. This can be an early warning sign, sometimes appearing before any movement happens at all, since a thief attempting to disable tracking or interfere with the system will often try to reach the device before driving off.

Treat a tamper alert seriously even if the vehicle hasn't moved yet. It can be the earliest indicator you get that something is wrong, and checking the vehicle or its location promptly is the right response.

Why three separate alerts, not just one

It would be simpler to have a single "something's wrong" notification, but it would also tell you a lot less. Knowing whether a car has been tampered with, has actually moved, or has left a specific area are three different situations that call for different levels of urgency. A tamper alert with no movement afterwards might just mean someone leaned on the car in a car park. The same alert followed quickly by movement and a geofence crossing is a very different picture. Getting them separately lets you read the sequence, not just the fact that something happened.

What to do when any alert fires

The pattern is the same across all three: open the app, check the live location, and use your own knowledge of the situation to judge whether it's expected or not. If it's not expected, that location information is exactly what the police need if you have to report a theft. The alerts do the watching so you don't have to, but what you do with the information in the following minutes is what actually matters.

Setting alerts up

Geofence boundaries are set by you inside the app, so it's worth taking a few minutes after installation to draw them around the areas that make sense for your vehicle. Movement and tamper alerts work automatically once the device is active, with nothing extra to configure. Together, the three give a fuller picture than any single alert could on its own, covering interference, unexpected movement and unexpected location, so you're not relying on just one signal to know something's wrong.

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