Tracker Monimoto 9
Not Included in box: USB-C Charging Cable
Features
Monimoto is a tracking device designed to help recover your bike as quickly as possible if it gets stolen. It’s not got fancy features that track your rides, or try to create come kind of community, and it’s all the better for it as, thanks to the small supplied key fob, it’s designed to be as unobtrusive as possible while keeping your bike protected.
Monimoto is completely self-contained, having an internal battery that’s charged via a USB-C port on the bottom. The claim is that this prevents thieves finding it by looking for additional wires coming from the battery, but it’s worth understanding that any properly fitted Thatcham-approved tracker would pick up power from elsewhere in the loom (and would have its own backup battery). Also, most of us have lots of additional wires for various accessories going to the bike’s battery anyway.
Monimoto communicates using LTE-M, which is a mobile communication technology that uses as little energy as possible. It also runs 2G, which will be shut down over time, though this shouldn’t be an issue. You can see all the countries and regions in which Monimoto operates here, though it’s worth noting that it doesn’t work in the Channel Islands or Canada.
Monimoto has an eSIM built in, which allows it to send location data out to be tracked in the event of a theft, and to trigger a phone call alert. This costs £36/year regardless of how often the device is set off.
At its most frequent, Monimoto checks in daily to ensure all is operating correctly, display the battery level and to optionally give you its current location. This keeps the battery usage low, but if the bike is moved and the fob isn’t nearby it goes into an alert state. If movement continues, Monimoto triggers a call to your phone, then tracks the bike roughly every five minutes while its moving until you turn it off or the fob is brought back into range.
Fitting
DO NOT FIT A TRACKER UNDER YOUR BIKE’S SEAT.
YouTubers promoting trackers often talk about simply placing the device under the bike’s seat, but this is typically ripped off by a thief to check for a poorly-installed tracking device. If they see it, they’ll throw it away.
Monimoto is extremely easy to install thanks to it coming with two reusable zip-ties, but I’d love to see a strip of 3M Dual Lock supplied as well. Like a cross between Velcro and Sticklebricks, this self-adhesive tape can be useful for attaching the tracker to the inside of a panel, for instance.
Think carefully about where you’ll install your Monimoto 9 as you’ll need to be able to get at it to recharge it, and it needs a fairly unhindered ‘line of sight’ to the sky without any metal covering it. I’d suggest finding a panel that you can remove pretty easily, but do make sure the device is well fastened, so it can’t fall off.
Just please DON’T put it under the seat!
Monimoto 9 is IP68 rated (Monimoto 7 was IP65), which means it’s protected against all dust ingress, and against immersion and high-pressure water jets. My only criticism of the case is the Monimoto logo – I’d have preferred it to be completely plain, to be even less conspicuous.
Still, it’s small – measuring just 93mm x 39mm, and 15mm thick, it shouldn’t be hard to find space for it. Even the fob – which is powered by a CR2032 cell, only measures 42mm x 29mm, and is 9mm thick.
Setting up Monimoto 9 is a simple job of downloading the iOS / Android app to your smartphone, then following the extremely easy pairing steps – in all it takes less than five minutes.
Day-to-day use
Monimoto does require a subscription – when you buy it, it comes with two months of use, but after that you’ll need to pay £36 per year to cover the eSIM cost. This hasn’t increased much over the years – when I reviewed Monimoto 7 back in 2021, the subscription cost was only £1.60 less, while the tracker itself cost £20 more.
The key fob that comes with Monimoto is a huge benefit – as long as it’s nearby you won’t have any hassles with false alarms, for instance when you’re cleaning your bike. You can adjust the range of the fob, which is helpful if you store the keys near where the bike is kept as at its maximum, I found it had a range of about four to five metres through the wall.
I did have a problem at one point with false alarms while riding the Zontes, but this seems to have been down to having the device near the keyless ignition’s antenna. I’ve moved it and had no problems since.
Monimoto is wonderfully unobtrusive to the day-to-day use of your bike, and the only reason you’ll need to interact with it outside of a theft is to charge the battery.
A small silicone cover protects the USB-C port, but this is untethered, so a bit easy to lose, but otherwise I’ve no complaints.
Monimoto 7, which uses two disposable lithium AA cells, was claimed to last up to 24 months on a charge, but this will depend on how you use it. For me, it was between six months (during heavy testing) and about a year and a half.
Monimoto 9 is claimed to last 12 months with its built in (non-replaceable) 3.7V 900mAh lithium-polymer cell. It’s too early to test that yet, but I’ll keep this review updated.
As you want to be sure there’s plenty of charge in case of a theft, I’d recommend setting a reminder in your diary to charge it every six months. It’d be great if Monimoto could include this option in future versions of the very clean, simple and easy-to-use app.
Your Monimoto will send you an alert when the battery level falls below 20%. In Monimoto 7, a new pair of batteries was said to be enough for 500 location notifications, meaning that at 20% there should be enough for 100, which as they typically come through about every five minutes, should allow tracking for just over eight hours. Once it dies, the last location would still be shown on your phone, and it’s very likely that the bike would have been left somewhere by the thieves in that time, if you hadn’t already got it back.
Monimoto 9’s battery appears to offer approximately half the capacity, which might indicate that in a worst-case scenario, tracking may stop after around four hours. However, the typical theft sees a bike pushed away then left quite soon to see if there’s a tracker hidden (thieves don’t want to lead the police to their home or lockup), so this should be more than enough.
The fob battery lasts for at least two years in my experience of the Monimoto 7, though the CR2032 cell now used typically has about half the capacity of the CR2450 used in the older, more bulky fobs.
Perhaps a handy feature is that you can pair a fob with multiple Monimotos, so if you had two units, you could use both fobs for both trackers. Equally, if you have two sets of keys for one bike (Monimoto can be used in a car too), you can buy an additional fob for £29.00. I tested this with my Monimoto 7’s old round key fob, and now have both fobs paired to both trackers.