Monimoto 9 review | Motorcycle tracker tested

Date reviewed: April 2024 | Tested by: John Milbank | Price: £149 + £36/year | monimoto.com

For the past few years, when borrowing motorcycles I’ve hidden the Monimoto 7 somewhere on them to give me a very quick alert if the bike’s being tampered with, as this self-fit tracker has proven very unobtrusive in day-to-day use. I’ve even tucked it in my car when I’ve had to park it somewhere dodgy.

The new Monimoto 9 is much smaller (and it has a smaller fob), and no longer relies on replaceable AA lithium batteries to power it, so I’ve been testing it for the past two months to find out how well it can protect your motorcycle from theft…

Note that Monimoto 9 will be shipping mid-May 2024

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.

Theft test

All our tracker tests are conducted in the same way – we don’t tell the manufacturer when we intend to perform a mock theft, and while we won’t waste police time to raise a crime number (if necessary for monitored systems), we expect the device (if it’s self-monitored) or operations centre to demonstrate the full service.

Level one: Pushed away and left in street: As soon as the bike is shaken, Monimoto 9 wakes up. If that movement continues and the fob isn’t within range, a push-notification is sent to your phone, almost immediately followed by a phone call. When answered, an automated voice tells you that your Monimoto device is in alarm mode.

From this point, the GPS location of your bike is updated approximately every five minutes as long as the bike keeps moving. To preserve battery power, Monimoto won’t update if it sees that the bike’s stopped moving.

You can access a ‘Live Tracking’ mode for more frequent updates while the bike’s moving, but these will draw more power.

Accuracy when outside is very good, Monimoto putting its location within a metre or two on the map built into the app. Clicking the text box that appears above the red location pin takes you into Google maps (as long as it’s installed on your phone) to plot a route to the bike.

Note that at the time of this review, the small Google Maps icon at the bottom right of the Monimoto map doesn’t work, but this doesn’t affect tracking or route finding, and will likely be fixed in an upcoming overhaul of the app. Clicking the text box above the pin is fine.

Level two: Pushed away and hidden in a building: As with the Level one test, alert was very quick, and tracking effective. Performance varies inside a building depending on the construction, but in a garage with a second story above it, accuracy drops to between five metres and 15 meters approximately.

This could still be enough to find the bike, and in some situations police officers may well have grounds to enter a property, but if the bike’s hidden in an area with a lot of buildings, it could be trickier to locate quickly.

Realistically of course, narrowing down the location would likely be possible.

Level three: Stolen in a van: Our tests are always done from within a van that has a steel bulkhead, as this can have a significant impact on a tracker’s signal. Impressively, Monimoto 9 remained reasonably accurate (as did Monimoto 7 when I retested it), accuracy dropping to around 10 metres.

Tracking the bike while it’s moving in the van proved simple, and it should prove reasonably easy to identify where it’s hidden at a standstill in most typical circumstances.

Bike jacking

If your bike is stolen without the fob, Monimoto will go into alarm mode within a minute or so, allowing you to easily track it. If, however, it’s stolen with the fob, you’ll need to start active tracking from the app, but this will only commence at the next regular update. Assuming you have Monimoto set to update daily (you can set it between one and 40 days) and the thief got away with your fob, if that update time is, for example, 7pm (it’s 24hours and one minute from the time it last checked in, be that through initial set-up, regular connection, to change settings or an alarm state), and the bike is stolen at 2pm, you’d need to wait five hours before it starts tracking.

I keep my bike keys separate to my house and garage keys to avoid them all scratching the headstock, so I keep my fob with the house keys to ensure every potential theft is covered.

Monimoto 7 vs Monimoto 9

From a technical point of view, Monimoto 7 and Monimoto 9 have some clear differences:

In my testing, Monimoto 9 appeared to be a little more accurate as than Monimoto 7. I’ve updated the Monimoto 7 review as it’s certainly improved a lot since I first tested it three years ago, but it seemed to be a few metres out compared to Monimoto 9. It also displays a blue circle around it, which looks less confident than the red pin that Monimoto displays (in the same app), but overall there’s not a huge difference between the two.

It's a shame that the battery in Monimoto 9 is non-replaceable, but given that the charge cycle of a lithium-polymer cell is around 300-500 cycles before it degrades to 80% of its capacity, it’s never likely to be an issue; even charging every six months, that’s at least 150 years.

Support

It’s important to understand that Monimoto is not a monitored tracking system, so unlike some of the more expensive devices, there’s no team available 24/7 to monitor your bike’s location and liaise with the police.

However, if you have any problems with your device, there’s an excellent FAQ built into the app. If you can’t find what you need there, you can enter a live chat, which I found provided a very helpful response within less than two minutes when I tested in on a weekday afternoon.

Three alternatives to the Monimoto 9

There are a lot of tracking device options now, offering varied levels of protection and performance. Sizzapp might be an alternative you’d consider, but unfortunately this proved to be a disappointing performer as a theft-tracking device. Read the full Sizzapp review here.

Pegase was another option, and it had the benefit of no subscription, but it’s no longer available and has been replaced with ‘Flashbird’, which costs £215 then 5 Euro/month, but we haven’t tested it yet.

• Monimoto 7 | £129 + £36/year: The main difference between Monimoto 7 and Monimoto 9 is that it’s powered by replaceable lithium AA batteries. These last about twice as long as the Monimoto 9’s internal cell, but it does make the device about twice as big. Accuracy has improved over time, and it seems to generally be on a par with the Monimoto 9 in my testing. Read the full review of Monimoto 7 here.

• Biketrac Lite | £199 + fitting + £60/year: This is a factory-fitted tracker that doesn’t feature the pinpoint-accurate RF detection of the full Biketrac (which costs £299 plus fitting and £99/year), but it is Thatcham approved, so should be recognised by insurers. While a monitoring team is on hand to liaise with the police, with this more basic device you need to call them if your bike is stolen – they won’t call you first. With the full version of BikeTrac, or with the Datatool Stealth, a 24/7 monitoring team is always on hand and monitoring your bike, and will get in touch if they see anything suspicious. To compare the features of these trackers, have a look at our best motorcycle trackers article here.

• Apple Air Tag | £30: A true budget option, Air Tags (and potentially the new Android versions) can help you find a stolen bike, though they don’t offer the accuracy and performance of dedicated motorcycle trackers, and anti-stalking measures could mean they alert the thief to their location. Better than nothing, but far from the best option.

These are just three of many alternatives – you can find all the motorcycle trackers we’ve tested here and be sure to regularly check for the discounts available through Bikesocial membership.

Verdict

Monimoto is a self-fit device, so it can’t gain Thatcham accreditation, which means it’s very unlikely to appear on any motorcycle insurance security list.

However, our testing has shown it to be very effective with a good level of accuracy and a superb, unobtrusive user experience thanks to the key fob that allows the device to be completely wire-free for ease of installation, yet not require any annoying manual disarming via an app when you ride.

The top trackers from BikeTrac and Datatool have proven themselves to be extremely effective in aiding the fast recovery of the majority of bikes stolen with them fitted, but Monimoto offers a speedy alert that something’s happening to your bike, and could mean you’re able to recover it quickly. Police officers have also confirmed that they will always endeavour to attend any active tracking theft, regardless of the device, so the purchase price of Monimoto, as well as its relatively small annual cost and brilliantly simple operation makes it well worth considering.

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