StickNFinds - Bluetooth stickers help you find lost stuff | Hacker News Reader

StickNFinds - Bluetooth stickers help you find lost stuff

boingboing.net

18 pointsandrewfelix11 comments

"Imagine you could Stick a Stick-N-Find Sticker on your Suitcase. When all the suitcases start coming out on the belt, you can sit down and wait. Once your Suitcase is within Range, your phone will Alert you, you can get up, and take your suitcase."

All I can imagine is the fine that the TSA slap on me when they realise my bag has been on transmit the whole flight...

I want one that's not tied to the phone since my phone is what I usually need to find or gets left behind outside. So I want a small keychain-able device that alerts or vibrates when my stick-on device, eg. phone is > some distance away.

EDIT: Just read the updates, it has it, nice!

We have added a new app feature: Reverse Virtual Leash: You put a Sticker on your keys etc, if you forget your phone behind, the sticker on keys will buz. You have to have the SticNFind app runnig on the backround for the reverse Virtual leash to work. This will work on both iPhone and Android. But remember, you must have the app running on the background, which usually, if you launch an app, is stays on the background unless you close it.

I've tried to attack this problem several times with various friends, because I am a chronic loser (of things, haha). This is a great idea. I wish I'd thought of it. Good luck to these guys. :D

direct link (boingboing doesn't provide any extra info): http://www.indiegogo.com/sticknfind

I'd like to see an even simpler solution to this problem, to better target the aging market. Rather than an App and 'radar', have a base unit and give the pad a noise / ringtone. Many portable handset phones have this solution - push a button on the base and the handset under the couch cushion beeps.

The central paradox of losing your glasses is that if you need glasses you can't see well enough to find them.

Devices like that have existed for some time now: http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Find-Remote-Control-Locator/dp/B...

I think that there is definitely a market for both products. I can't imagine some of my ageing relatives wanting to fire up an app to find their keys (they don't own smartphones anyway), but for my use I'd like the additional features that this solution provides.

Perhaps a StickNFind base station could be built at a later stage.

Exactly the sort of response I was hoping for - the "here it is" solution!

Perhaps better still: make the targets to be found use completely passive RFID tags. (No batteries needed, ever.)

Make the 'finder' unit a powered, portable wand-like device which pulses the tags, and makes sound or light in proportion to how well it is pointed toward the desired target, and how close it is.

(Regress to finding a misplaced 'finder' wand: give the wand a charging base station with the basic push-button-and-wand-beeps behavior. This base station might also include whatever UI selects which target you're seeking.)

With this design bluetooth is probably not involved or beneficial.

I wonder if this could be used to track objects in a room as they move about, perhaps providing better resolution than GPS? Also, I would like to point out that one of the items on his list was a `cat`.

As he says in the video, they can't locate the position but can approximate distance from signal strength measurements.

To get location information would require one of the following: 1) An array of antennas pointing in different directions, this is certainly possible, but not using the single built in antenna in a smartphone.

2) The device to know its own location and to transmit this to the phone. This would only be as accurate as GPS and would use significantly more power.

Using signal strength to approximate distance is reasonable, but the location of the sensor, nearby objects and the design of the phone's antenna will all affect the measurements.

I'd stick one on my phone!

Wait...

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