Lost & tracking: Disrupting wireless locators and smart tags

How often do we misplace personal items like phones, spectacles, a TV remote or a USB data stick. A whole family of tiny devices are available which you can attach to such objects on a key chain or as a sticker — and they will use Bluetooth to send out a beep or tell you where they are.

In its simplest form, it costs less than Rs 500 and can be found on Indian online retail sites like Naaptol, if you search for “Keychain whistle locators”. You make a similar noise and the device will beep in reply.

But in recent months, the technology has been refined: the market leader in the US is something called a Tile, a small stamp-sized waterproof piece of plastic which you attach to stuff that you tend to lose. You can activate up to 20 of these and attach them to things like laptops or tablets or even bikes. Tiles cost around $20 each.

However, Indian brains too have been at work. Engineers at Connovate Technology have created a sticky tag called Gecko, which houses a chip, a tiny battery, an accelerometer to sense movement, LED lights and a buzzer. You can tag your front door to warn if it is opened by an intruder, you can even tag a crawling baby to ensure it does not wander away.

But the real beauty of Gecko is that it works in reverse: you can use it as a gesture device to send instructions to your phone to start playing music — or even to switch on a camera remotely, while you get into the shot. Gecko was crowd-funded by backers who pitched in more than $100,000. These backers are now getting the first units  while the public can book at store.geckotag.in, by month end.