In the first nine months of the 2025/2026 financial year, the South African Police Service (SAPS) recorded more than 77 000 vehicle-related theft cases, including 22 726 thefts of motor vehicles and motorcycles and 54 838 cases of theft from motor vehicles.
Behind those numbers lies a real everyday problem: valuable movable assets are often parked, stored, or left unattended without a practical tracking solution. Trailers, caravans, quads, bicycles, e-bikes, tools, camping gear, camera equipment, boats, and jet skis do not fit neatly into a tracking market built around cars, fleets, installations, and monthly contracts.
For many consumers, that leaves an awkward gap: paying between R3 000 and R6 000 in the first year for a conventional vehicle-tracking contract (typically R1 200 to R2 500 upfront plus R150 to R300 per month), or relying on a Bluetooth tag.
South African tracking technology company Horizen has launched ShadowGuard to address that gap. Designed for high-value portable assets, the matchbox-sized tracker gives consumers a plug-and-play way to receive movement alerts and follow a breadcrumb trail if an asset is moved without permission.
Horizen says ShadowGuard is South Africa’s first consumer-grade Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) tracker built for portable asset recovery. Measuring 46mm × 41mm × 16mm, ShadowGuard is the smallest long-life portable GPS tracker of its kind in the local market.
ShadowGuard uses Vodacom’s NB-IoT network, a low-power cellular technology originally deployed for enterprise Internet of Things applications such as smart meters, industrial sensors, and asset tracking. For tracking applications, NB-IoT supports improved signal penetration through walls and buildings, wider coverage in lower-signal areas, and lower power consumption. In ShadowGuard’s case, that supports long battery life in a compact device that does not require users to manage a consumer SIM card, arrange professional installation, or perform technical configuration.
“ShadowGuard came from a very practical problem,” says Terblanche. “We were seeing people use Bluetooth tags to protect assets they were genuinely worried about losing, but those tags were never built for active theft recovery. We wanted to take technology usually associated with enterprise IoT and make it simple enough for someone to use on a trailer, e-bike, caravan, or piece of equipment without technical setup or a traditional tracking contract.”
ShadowGuard includes tamper and movement alerts, and switches to two-minute location updates when an asset starts moving, creating a breadcrumb trail that can be shared with SAPS or insurance assessors. When stationary, ShadowGuard checks in less frequently, offering up to two months of battery life in standby mode and seven to ten days in active tracking mode.
For Terblanche, the opportunity lies in the gap between what people worry about losing and what traditional tracking models make practical to protect.
“Not every asset is a car, and not every person wants another monthly tracking subscription. A trailer, bicycle, quad, caravan, or piece of equipment can represent real value to a household or small business. If it moves when it should not, people need to know quickly. ShadowGuard is about giving them that early warning and a practical recovery trail,” he says.