The StickNFind Virtual Radar App

Are you tired of losing the TV remote? Are you always misplacing your keys? Well, this new technology may be just what you need. It’s called StickNFind, and in a nutshell it is a tracking chip that you stick to often misplaced items. Then, using the special smart phone app, you can hone in on it with a radar type indicator.

A recent Engadget story gives details of this "coming soon" technology. It uses Bluetooth technology, and these little thin quarter-sized disk units that stick to common items and allow multiple options for locating them. The units come in various colors, have a battery life of one year or greater, a range of 100-foot, and can emit the signal as well as a flashing light and buzzing sound. The general idea is, you place the unit on your item. When you need to locate it, you use the smart phone app to play a game of hot-and-cold until you get within a reasonable distance from your item, at which point you can trigger the unit to buzz or flash for ease in locating precisely.

The current edition of the app simply displays the distance from the item, allowing you to move around until you can determine you are moving towards the object. Further enhancements expect to add a direction feature too, for even easier locating. The most ideal use of this seems to be for smaller distance use, though they also advertise it as usable on pets and children (in a small store for instance). However, many other uses are in the works and could make this quite a useful little item.

With a new StickNFind Task Launcher, placing the disc at the entrance to a conference hall could allow it to automatically set cell phones to silent as people enter. Or use it to automatically change your ring tone as you enter different locations. Other uses include a “Find It” feature, which will notify you when you get in range of an item. Say for instance, you are out of the 100-foot range of a lost item. You simply set the app to notify you when you do get into range of the item. Another handy use is the “Virtual Lease” feature, which allows you to set it so that your phone notifies you when a disk has left the 100-foot range. Or set up the reverse, so if you have your keys, but left your phone behind, the keys will buzz/flash if you get too far from your phone (for those people always leaving their phone behind).

Many additional uses are being considered, making this a very versatile unit, especially if the 100-foot distance can be increased in the future. An article on this product was published on The Blaze, and I found it funny that one commenter on the article jokingly mentioned using them on golf balls, which received a response from another commenter about that technology already existing – but that is another story. It just goes to show how such a technology as this does have many different uses to make our life of losing things just a bit easier.

While currently in the pre-production phase, with funds being raised for the project through an Indiegogo site, the units expect to be shipped starting in March.

Image courtesy of Indiegogo.com