In the ranks of nagging annoyances, the search for misplaced keys (especially when you are late) is pretty high.
A product called Stick-N-Find has a solution: a Bluetooth beacon with an adhesive backing that you can stick to your keys or anything else you might lose. You can use your phone to home in on the beacon.
But don’t hand out the Nobel Prize just yet. Stick-N-Find still needs some refinement.
On the plus side, the little gizmos are easy to use. The adhesive-backed disks, about the size of two quarters stacked together, can stick to keys, luggage, your glasses case, the TV remote, your wallet â€" basically anything you might hunt for between the couch cushions.
A free Stick-N-Find app goes on an iPhone 5 or 4S, the new iPad, iPad mini, the new iPod touch, or any Android phone with Bluetooth Low Energy and system 4.1.
Then the phone acts as a homing device that lets you zero in on up to 20 different little Bluetooth beacons. You name each beacon using the app, so you can always track down the right item (provided it is not your phone that you have lost).
When you come within range, you can press a button on the phone that causes the beacon to chirp and light up.
You can also create an electronic leash that sets off the chirp when the beacons are outside of tracking range. That could stop you from walking out of a restaurant without your keys, or perhaps stop someone else from walking out with your wallet.
While it all works well in theory, in practice it needs some refinement.
For one thing, the homing app is not directional. While the app shows a clever radar-style screen, it tells you roughly how far you are from your beacon, but not in which direction. It may not save you from searching every room of the house, although it should ensure that you have to do so only once.
Another drawback is that the app measures the distance between you and the beacon in something called “radio feet,†which is completely useless. When my phone is nearly close enough to touch the beacon, the app puts me at three radio feet. Fifteen feet away reads 255 radio feet. How does that help me find anything?
The other thing is, the price could stand to come down. The little beacons are $50 a pair, so if you tagged the maximum 20 items, you would spend $500. Maybe you should just designate a keys and glasses drawer.
The beacons are available in a variety of colors: black, clear, white, pink, red and blue. They also come with little fobs so you can affix them to things like key rings and pet collars.
Currently they are available only through the Stick-N-Find Web site.
