Building a TCP Listener for GPS Devices in Go

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Picture 500 GPS trackers connected to your server simultaneously, each streaming location data every 10–30 seconds, while others only emit a quiet heartbeat when parked. These connections stay alive for hours, occasionally drop without saying goodbye, and sometimes deliver fragmented data in bursts.

If you come from the world of HTTP APIs, where one neat request yields one neat response, stepping into TCP feels like moving from delivering individual courier parcels to running a bustling sorting office where the mail never stops flowing.

Understanding GPS Protocols: How Tracker Devices Communicate

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When I was first trusted to build and maintain a backend for hundreds of GPS trackers, I assumed it was just a matter of writing a standard REST API: the device fires off a POST /api/location with JSON, the server saves it to the database, and we’re done.

I was dead wrong. (The full story of why that backend was eventually migrated from Laravel to Go, across 370+ endpoints, is documented in my Hijrah Backend narrative series. The series you are reading right now is the tutorial counterpart: rebuilding the architecture from scratch, complete with code you can follow along with.)

Tcp on Blogfolio Najib

Building a TCP Listener for GPS Devices in Go

Understanding GPS Protocols: How Tracker Devices Communicate