Getting Started
Key Concepts
Before diving into features, it helps to understand the core building blocks of Pointeron and how they fit together.
Organizations
An organization is the top-level container for everything in Pointeron. It represents your company, team, or personal workspace. Each organization is fully isolated -- it owns its own assets, devices, geofences, team members, categories, and billing.
When you sign up, you create your first organization during onboarding. You can invite team members and assign them roles to control what they can see and do.
Multi-tenant isolation
Data is strictly separated between organizations. Team members in one organization cannot see or access data from another organization.
Assets
An asset is the thing you track. It could be a vehicle, a pet, a package, or any physical object you want to monitor.
Each asset has the following properties:
- Name -- A human-readable label (e.g., "Delivery Van #3")
- Code -- A unique identifier within your organization
- Category -- The group this asset belongs to
- Status -- Active or inactive
- Tracking mode -- How location data is processed (trips, points, or disabled)
Assets also have configurable trip tracking and event thresholds for minimum trip distance, speed limits, battery warnings, idle timeouts, and movement update webhooks. You can attach custom attributes as key-value pairs (text, number, or date) for additional metadata.
An asset receives its location data from an assigned device. Without a device, the asset exists in your system but will not report any location.
Devices
A device is the hardware or software that reports location data. Pointeron supports several device types, each with different reporting characteristics:
| Device type | Sync interval | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile Tracker | Mode dependent | iPhone or Android phone running Pointeron Mobile |
| Find My Items | ~15 minutes | Apple AirTags |
| Find My Devices | ~15 minutes | iPhones, iPads, Macs |
| GPS Trackers | ~3 seconds+ | Teltonika, GT06, H02 |
| Beacon Trackers | ~10 seconds | AirTags/Beacons managed by Pointeron |
| Find My Device/Item | ~10 seconds | AirTags/Beacons/Devices on dedicated Mac |
A device can be assigned to exactly one asset at a time. When you reassign a device, it stops reporting to the previous asset and begins reporting to the new one.
Each device has a status:
- Online -- Actively reporting location data
- Offline -- Not currently reporting
- Lost -- Marked as lost (iCloud lost mode)
Categories
Categories let you organize assets into hierarchical groups with shared default settings. Think of them as folders for your assets.
A category can define:
- Icon and color -- Visual identity on the map and in lists
- Default speed limit -- Applied to all assets in the category
- Location filtering -- Minimum distance and interval between recorded points
- Alert preferences -- Default notification settings
- Geofence sync -- Geofences assigned to the category apply to all its assets
Categories can be nested to create a hierarchy. For example: Vehicles > Delivery Vans > Electric Vans. Child categories inherit settings from their parent unless explicitly overridden.
Tip
Use categories to group assets by fleet, department, device type, or geographic region. This makes filtering and reporting much more efficient.
Geofences
A geofence is a virtual boundary drawn on the map. When an asset crosses a geofence boundary, Pointeron can trigger alerts and record events.
Pointeron supports four geofence shapes:
- Circle -- Defined by a center point and radius
- Polygon -- Any freeform shape drawn on the map
- Rectangle -- A simple rectangular boundary
- Corridor (RouteGuard) -- A buffered path along a route, ideal for monitoring whether assets stay on a designated road or corridor
Each geofence can trigger alerts for the following events:
- Entry -- An asset enters the geofence
- Exit -- An asset leaves the geofence
- Dwell -- An asset stays inside the geofence longer than a threshold
- Speed -- An asset exceeds a speed limit within the geofence
Alerts and rules
Alerts are notifications triggered by specific events. You configure alert rules to define what conditions trigger a notification and how you want to be notified.
Common alert triggers include:
- Geofence crossing -- Entry or exit from a defined area
- Speed violation -- Exceeding a set speed limit
- Low battery -- Device battery drops below a threshold
- Idle timeout -- Asset has not moved for a specified duration
Alerts can be delivered via email, push notification, webhook, or displayed in the dashboard. You can configure alert rules at the asset level, the category level, or globally.
Alert volume
Be selective with alert rules. Overly broad rules on high-frequency devices (such as GPS trackers reporting every 3 seconds) can generate a large number of notifications. Use geofence dwell thresholds and cooldown periods to reduce noise.
Tracking modes
Every asset has a tracking mode that determines how its location data is processed:
- Trips -- Pointeron automatically detects trip start and stop events based on movement. Best for vehicles and assets that travel between fixed locations. See Trip Detection for details.
- Points -- Every location update is recorded continuously. Best for real-time monitoring where you need a complete trail.
- Disabled -- No location data is processed. The device may still report data, but it is not stored.
Choosing a mode
Use Trips for vehicles with GPS trackers that report frequently. Use Points for iCloud devices with infrequent updates where trip detection would not work well. You can change the tracking mode at any time from the asset settings.
The Pointeron mobile app also offers Balanced, High Fidelity, and On Demand modes. Those modes control when the phone collects locations; the asset modes above control how the server processes accepted points. See Mobile App & Phone Tracking.
API keys
API keys let you integrate Pointeron with your own applications. Each key is scoped to specific permissions so you can control exactly what external systems can access.
Available scopes:
| Scope | Access |
|---|---|
assets | Read and manage assets |
devices | Read and manage devices |
locations | Read location data and history |
geofences | Read and manage geofences |
categories | Read and manage categories |
webhooks | Manage webhook subscriptions |
team | Read team member information |
analytics | Access reporting and analytics data |
Create API keys from Settings > API Keys in the dashboard. Each key can be given a name and an expiration date. Revoked keys stop working immediately.
Security
API keys grant programmatic access to your organization data. Treat them like passwords -- never commit them to version control or share them in plain text. Use environment variables or a secrets manager.
How it all fits together
Here is how the core concepts relate to each other:
- An organization owns everything -- assets, devices, categories, geofences, team members, and API keys.
- Devices are hardware that report location data. Each device is assigned to one asset.
- Assets are organized into categories, which define shared settings and geofence assignments.
- Geofences define virtual boundaries. Alert rules trigger notifications when assets interact with geofences or violate thresholds.
- API keys provide scoped access for external integrations.