A partnership for ICMSA member families
ICMSA has partnered with ProTracs to bring FarmTracs, Ireland's dedicated farm asset protection platform, to member families. Tracking, alerting and forensic marking for the equipment that keeps a holding running.
The ICMSA member shop is opening shortly. This page explains what is covered and how you will be supported.
The partnership
Agricultural theft is not a new problem for family farms. What has been missing is a practical answer that works on a working farm, without mains power, without Wi-Fi, and without adding another job to the day.
ICMSA went looking for something that would hold up on a family dairy farm rather than in a brochure. The association assessed the platform, the hardware and the support model before putting its name to it.
The partnership exists so that members get a solution that has been examined on their behalf, from an organisation that answers to them.
ProTracs is a registered Irish company building FarmTracs specifically for Irish agricultural conditions. The platform, the devices, the fulfilment, the billing and the support all sit with ProTracs.
There is an Irish support team behind it with direct access and no overseas call centre. Members deal with people who understand the setting.
You get access to the full FarmTracs range through ICMSA, with the devices, the platform, the installation guidance and the support handled by ProTracs. ICMSA remains your point of representation; ProTracs is who you deal with on the kit and the system.
Nothing on this page asks you to commit to anything today. The member shop opens shortly, and until then this is simply what is coming and how it works.
The problem
The pattern on Irish farms is consistent, and it shapes what the equipment on this page is built to do.
Tractors, quad bikes, telehandlers, trailers and dairy handling equipment are primary targets for organised theft. Quads in particular are the single most stolen item on Irish farms.
Rural locations mean long response times. Without tracking, stolen assets are gone before anyone arrives and are rarely recovered afterwards.
Fuel siphoning, tool theft and the loss of smaller implements happen every season, on top of margins that are already tight.
CCTV and locks offer limited deterrence against professional operations. They record what happened rather than tell you where the machine went.
Insurance costs continue to climb as agricultural crime rates increase. A claim form is not protection.
Whatever goes on a farm has to work in an outlying field with no mains supply and no network of its own. That rules a lot of consumer kit out.
How it works
Understanding the difference matters more than any individual specification, because it decides what each device can realistically do on a working farm. All three report into the same platform and the same app.
No SIM and no cellular connection. The tag broadcasts a low-energy Bluetooth signal, and any phone running the app that passes within range relays its position anonymously.
Battery life runs to years because the tag does almost nothing most of the time. The trade-off is that updates depend on a handset passing nearby. In a yard that happens often enough to be useful. On an item taken into open countryside it may not.
PB703 · PB705 · PB706 · EYE Sensor
Wired into the vehicle supply, with their own satellite receiver and cellular connection. They report on a schedule you set, down to every few seconds during an incident, and do not rely on anyone else being nearby.
This is the class for anything that moves under its own power. An internal backup battery means cutting the vehicle supply does not stop it reporting, which is usually the first thing a thief tries.
FMM880
A satellite tracker with its own large battery and cellular connection, for assets with no power supply of their own: trailers, bowsers, containers, feeders and plant left in outlying fields.
Battery life is measured in years rather than months, so it can be fitted and forgotten. Reporting frequency is configurable and trades directly against how long the battery lasts.
LL705 · ATC774
The devices
Specifications are manufacturer figures. Battery life in particular depends on reporting frequency and ambient temperature, and the figures quoted are for typical configurations.
Bluetooth tag
PB703 · Mini Bluetooth Asset Tag
The smallest tag in the range and the entry point to the system. Designed for items that are numerous, individually modest in value and easy to walk off with: power tools, hand tools, chainsaws, smaller implements and equipment that moves between sheds.
It carries no SIM and needs no subscription of its own. An integrated buzzer lets you sound the tag from the app to find the item it is attached to.
Bluetooth tag
PB705 · IP68 Rugged Asset Tag
The same Bluetooth approach in a fully sealed housing. IP68 is the highest common ingress rating, meaning protection against dust and against continuous immersion, not merely splashing. On an Irish farm that is the difference between a tag that survives a winter outdoors and one that does not.
It runs from a long-life cell rated for up to three years and operates from minus twenty to plus seventy degrees, which covers anything the climate or a hot machinery shed will produce. The buzzer is louder than the PB703 at 80 dB, audible across a yard rather than across a room.
Bluetooth tag
PB706 · Slim Bluetooth Tracking Tag
A credit-card sized tag just two millimetres thick, built from tempered glass on both faces with a sandblasted anodised aluminium frame. The point of it is placement: it slides into a document wallet, behind a panel, under a seat, into a toolbox lid or a cab pocket where a thicker tag simply will not go.
That makes it the most concealable device in the range. A thief searching a vehicle is looking for something that looks like a tracker, and a 2 mm card tucked into a document pouch does not.
Bluetooth sensor
EYE Sensor · Bluetooth Condition Sensor
The other Bluetooth devices in the range answer where something is. This one answers what state it is in. It is a Bluetooth Low Energy sensor that monitors temperature, humidity, movement and magnet status, in a robust casing with a long-life battery.
The magnet function is the one that tends to surprise people. Pair the sensor with a magnet on a door, a hatch, a tank lid or a gate, and you get told when it is opened, whether or not anything is moved. Temperature and humidity matter in their own right for stores, tanks and anywhere feed or medicine is kept.
Powered vehicle terminal
FMM880 · LTE Cat M1 GNSS Vehicle Terminal
A hardwired satellite tracking terminal, and the device to fit to anything that drives. It wires into any 10 to 30 volt supply, so one part number covers both 12 volt quads and pickups and 24 volt tractors and telehandlers.
It uses LTE Cat M1, a cellular standard built for machine connections rather than phones. That matters for longevity as 2G and 3G networks are progressively switched off across Europe, and it gives better coverage in marginal rural signal. It carries automotive type approval for vehicle installation.
Self-powered tracker
LL705 · Long-Life Self-Powered Asset Tracker
A rugged satellite tracker with its own 18,000 mAh battery, for high-value assets that carry no power supply of their own. The device for a trailer in an outlying field, a bowser, a container, a generator or plant left on a site over winter.
Depending on how often it is configured to report, the battery can last up to ten years, so it can genuinely be fitted and forgotten. It positions using GPS, BeiDou and cell-tower location together, and carries a light sensor and an accelerometer so it can tell the difference between being moved and being opened.
Self-powered tracker
ATC774 · Battery-Powered 4G Asset Tracker
A battery-powered 4G LTE Cat 1 asset tracker built for long-term deployments. Like the LL705 it needs no supply from the asset it is fitted to, but it runs on the newer 4G Cat 1 standard and offers flexible battery options, so the same device can be specified for a shorter high-reporting deployment or a multi-year fit-and-forget one.
It is a sealed LTE and GNSS terminal with an internal lithium thionyl chloride cell, built by the same maker as the FMM880 vehicle terminal, which means both sit on the same firmware and platform family.
Choosing
A practical guide rather than a rule. Most holdings end up with a mix: tags on the many small things, a powered terminal on each machine that drives, and a self-powered tracker on whatever sits out in the fields.
| Asset | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Tractors, harvesters, telehandlers | FMM880 | Own power supply, high value, and needs live position the moment it moves rather than when a phone happens to pass. |
| Quads and ATVs | FMM880 | The single most stolen item on Irish farms, and the clearest case for a hardwired terminal that reports the moment it moves. |
| Trailers, bowsers, feeders | LL705 | No power supply of their own, often left in outlying ground, and visited rarely enough that a ten year battery matters. |
| Containers and secure stores | LL705 | The light sensor reports a container being opened even if it is never moved. |
| Bulk tanks, medicine and feed stores | EYE Sensor | Reports temperature and humidity as well as movement, and the magnet function flags a lid, hatch or door being opened even if nothing is taken. |
| Long-deployment plant in remote ground | ATC774 | Battery-powered on 4G LTE Cat 1 with flexible battery options, so reporting rate and service life can be matched to how often the asset is visited. |
| Power tools and hand tools | PB703 | Numerous, individually modest in value, and usually stolen in quantity from a shed rather than one at a time. |
| Gates, outdoor and washed-down equipment | PB705 | Sealed to IP68, so it survives sustained wet and a winter outdoors rather than just rain. |
| Concealed placement in cabs and vehicles | PB706 | Two millimetres thick, so it fits where nothing else in the range will, and does not look like a tracker. |
| Everything else of value | EURODOT marking | Proves ownership on recovery, and the warning labels deter before a theft happens. |
Forensic marking
Tracking tells you where an item is. Marking proves whose it is once it has been recovered. EURODOT microdots are microscopic markers, each carrying a unique code registered to the owner, applied in their thousands so that removing every one is not practical.
Each kit includes an Ultra Destruct warning label set, UV marking fluid and full registration of the coded dots to the holding. The warning labels matter as much as the dots themselves: they are the visible deterrent that makes the marking work before a theft rather than after it.
Dots are read under magnification and the code looked up against the registration record, which is what turns a recovered machine into a provable one. The registration sits inside the same platform as the tracking devices, so there is no second system to manage.
EURODOT is the forensic marking platform behind the dots, the coding and the ownership register. The full range, the technology and the registration process are set out on their own site.
Visit eurodot.io →The platform
Whatever mix of devices a holding ends up with, they all report into the same platform and the same app. There is no separate system per device type, and no second login.
Current location for every device, with historical playback so a machine's movements can be reconstructed after the fact.
Draw a boundary around a yard, a field or the whole holding. Entry, exit and dwell time are recorded and can raise an alert.
Movement outside permitted hours, geofence breach, tamper or power disconnect, delivered by push notification, email or text.
Movement, temperature, battery state and light, depending on the device, so you see condition as well as position.
Your support
The hardware is the easy part. What makes this workable on a family farm is what happens around it, and all of it sits with ProTracs rather than with you or with ICMSA.
Devices installed and tested across your assets. Geofences configured to your farm boundary. Microdot marking applied to key equipment.
Alert thresholds set to your preferences: movement alerts, geofence breaches, after-hours activity. Not a one-size default.
An online onboarding session covering the dashboard, alert management, geofencing and how to respond when an alert fires. No technical background needed.
An Irish support team with direct access and fast response. No overseas call centre and no ticket queue to climb.
A shop built specifically for ICMSA members is being set up now. When it opens you will be able to order any device on this page, with the ICMSA member arrangement applied automatically at checkout.
Member shop opening shortlyIn the meantime, questions about any device or about how it would work on your holding can go to ProTracs directly.
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