Never lose your stuff again – that’s the idea. If you are anything like me you spend more time trying to find your phone, keys, beer or (insert whatever it is you have lost recently) than you do using them! ‘Ere indoors regularly chastises me for doing a “boy search” and then manages to find the lost item within seconds in exactly the place that I have already turned upside down in a vain attempt to locate whatever it was I just couldn’t find.
Well, if you are even vaguely like me, then the solution is in sight – the “Tile”. A new start-up company from the US have developed a little (about an inch square) plastic device that you can attach like a tag to anything that is important to you and then use your computer or smartphone to locate it.
The company is currently looking for backers to reach their goal of raising $20,000 in order to launch their new exciting product, and they have, at the time of writing (with only 10 days left to reach their goal) already raised $775,148 (a staggering 3776% of their initial goal amount) I don’t think they will be sweating about it!
The idea is that the tile uses the NFL (near field location) technology that is built into many modern mobile phones to broadcast their location. An app on your iPhone or iPad (it only works with Apple products at the moment) can their use this broadcast information to locate your missing item. In true Geiger counter style the app displays a location sensor that lights up as you get closer to the lost Tile but if you still can’t find it, then once you are close enough you can ask it to make a sound using its built in speakers so that you can find it easily. The tiles are only $18 to buy each and don’t need batteries. The only down side I could see is that they only last a year, although $18 is a small price to pay in my opinion for not having to go cap in hand to the missis every time I lose something!
You can even share tiles between family members, so shared items can be searched for by everyone. There is also a great feature that allows you to mark an item as stolen and then if anyone who is using the app (anyone at all) goes within range of it, you will be alerted of its current GPS location. It seems that what the developers really want to do is to build a community of Tile users – because the more people that use the device, the better the support will be and the and also the ability to find lost and stolen items.
You can find out more at www.thetileapp.com and you can see a great video of the device at http://youtu.be/pqDm3gZNZPM