Question is self explanatory. We had a zero-turn stolen last year. We plan on buying another one this year, and I want to protect it. I've never looked into options available, but I'd like to tag my gear so that it can be tracked if stolen.

Besides obvious solutions involving keeping the gear out of sight and using chains + padlocks, what other ways are there to protect and recover equipment?

Edit 2: Options so far:

1. I've been looking at Internet Connected GPS Trackers on Amazon and have found some internet-connected-gsm units like this and this.

• Can get pre-paid cards and pay ~$25 every 3 months
• Can add another line to our family plan for ~$10 a month.
• Might be able to add an AT&T SIM card and leave plan inactivated until needed, leaving no monthly bill until "needed".
• Will have to get it "installed" on the item in a nondescript way that gets a signal and juice from battery.

2. Disable vehicles at the engine - make it harder to move the items and more expensive if they do get stolen.
3. Fast Disconnect tires. Same general idea as #2, make it harder to remove lawn mower. missing parts.
4. locks and chains - main issue with this is that where our stuff is stored is semi-secluded and a good pair of bolt-cutters + time.
5. dangle them from high above - no high-rises nearby, not many tree's, not sure we want a $3k lawn mower hanging through the winter

Edit 1: Looking around, I've found plenty of GPS devices for tracking teenagers, children, cars, fleet and similar - but for home use ~$30 a month for protection of a single device seems much. One example found is this EON GPS Asset Tracker, which doesn't seem bad but its a bit expensive due to the monthly bill.

There has to be a good option that you can install into a lawnmower, let it leech off of available wifi-hotspots with the possibly of remotely activating more tracking if need-be without a month subscription fee. Item disappears and it's not phoning home via wifi? Enable cell phone tracking for a one time fee.

Right site or not? As I said in comments, I think this is the best site possible for this question... if it's not, which exchange should I ask this on?