[HH] Stick-N-Find: Bluetooth object tracker

[Tom Metro]

I thought I wrote about these when I ran across the Kickstarter project,
but I can't seem to find mention of them in the list archives.

It's a coin sized Bluetooth transmitter that you attach to objects you
want to be able to later find.

Here's a video review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s9j5ZP2V28

Manufacturer's site:
http://www.sticknfind.com/

Looks a bit bigger than a quarter (reviewer says "two quarters
stacked"). Runs on a lithium coin cell (CR2016) that lasts a year.

The tracker also has a small speaker and an LED, both of which help you
spot it when it is activated.

Works with an iOS or Android app with a "radar" style range finder
screen. (Requires a device that supports Bluetooth 4.0 low energy mode.)
You can pair it with up to 20 trackers. (Reviewer notes the range finder
distances are inaccurate. No surprise there. Also, the direction of the
device can't actually be determined, given the single Bluetooth antenna
on a cellphone, so the radar sweep in the app is just for show.)

Has a 100 foot range.

Also has a proximity alert mode, where it will alert you when you are
either within range of the target device, or alert you when you've
gotten out of range of a target device. So in the latter case (a mode
they call "virtual leash"), you might stick one on a laptop, so you get
an alarm if someone walks off with it.

The cost is $50 for 2 trackers.

I guess that makes sense for tracking an expensive item within a 100'
radius or something you lose often. But the cost and limit of 20 paired
trackers is going to narrow the scope of how this can be applied.

It's really too bad the technology and physics don't allow you to do
this sort of thing with RFID tags, which can be had for pennies.

 -Tom