Tools go missing one at a time. Quietly.
Tools don’t go missing all at once. They go missing one at a time, quietly, until the replacement spend adds up to something a finance director notices. A strimmer ends up living in the wrong van for months. A calibrated test meter goes past its due date and nobody catches it until a customer asks for the certificate. Multiply that across a fleet and a depot, and the result is duplicate purchases for tools you already own somewhere, plus compliance gaps you only find out about when it’s too late to fix quietly. Fitting every tool with a full GPS tracker has never stacked up cost-wise, until now.
How TotalCtrl’s tool tracking works.
Everything tool tracking covers.
- ✓Full tool register (hand tools, power tools, calibrated test equipment) each fitted with a low-cost BLE tag
- ✓Crowd-sourced Bluetooth location, with ping frequency configurable per tool from every 10 minutes to hourly
- ✓Battery-powered tags with a 2 to 3 year typical life, so there's nothing to charge or swap out often
- ✓Calibration and inspection schedules for test equipment, with automatic alerts
- ✓Utilisation reporting: which tools are pulling their weight, which are sitting in a locker
Built for how different field teams actually work.
Same tag technology, applied to the way each sector shares and moves its tools.
Renewable & Solar
Handheld test meters and torque tools travel between remote, spread-out sites, where knowing exactly which site a tool is on saves a wasted trip back to depot.
Commercial HVAC/M&E
Leak detectors and manifold gauges move between a high volume of stops in a day, so a live location trail beats trying to remember which job you last used one on.
Specialist Field Engineering
Niche testers are often shared across a small pool of engineers, so knowing exactly where one is right now matters more than for common tools everyone has their own of.
Grounds Maintenance
Mowers, strimmers, hedge cutters and blowers move between crews constantly and carry real loss risk, especially in van share arrangements.
The operational shifts customers see.
- →Fewer tools lost, "missing," or bought again because nobody could find the one you already had
- →Calibration and inspection compliance for test equipment, tracked automatically
- →A real location trail when a tool goes missing, at a fraction of the cost of fitting GPS to everything you own
- →Better sense of which tools you actually need more of, and which you're over-stocked on
Questions we get asked.
What is tool tracking in field service?
It's knowing the location and custody of individual tools (drills, mowers, test equipment) using low-cost Bluetooth tags rather than full GPS hardware, which makes it economical to tag high-volume, lower-value items you wouldn't otherwise track individually.
How is tool tracking different from asset tracking?
Asset tracking covers higher-value plant and equipment (generators, pumps, plant) fitted with a discreet hardware tracker for continuous location data. Tool tracking covers smaller, higher-volume items like drills and mowers, fitted with a low-cost BLE tag that reports location via crowd-sourced Bluetooth rather than GPS.
What technology is used to track tools?
Each tool carries a battery-powered BLE tag. Location is inferred from crowd-sourced Bluetooth, the tag is anonymously picked up by nearby Android and Apple devices already out in the world, not dedicated vehicle gateways, and reported back to TotalCtrl at an interval you configure from every 10 minutes to once an hour depending on how closely you need to track it.
How long do the tags last?
Typically 2 to 3 years, depending on the tag type and how frequently it's set to ping.
Can it track calibration for test equipment like leak detectors or torque tools?
Yes. Any tool with a calibration or inspection requirement carries its own schedule, and alerts fire ahead of the due date.
Do engineers need to do anything for this to work?
No. Once a tool is tagged, location and custody update on their own. There's no scanning or logging required day to day.
Can I see which tools are underused or overstocked?
Yes. Utilisation reporting shows which tools are in regular use and which are sitting idle, so buying and stocking decisions are based on actual usage.