Bluetooth stickers help you find things when you lose them

StickNFinds are Bluetooth location stickers the diameter of a quarter (but thicker than a quarter). You attach them to television remote controls, pets, children, or other things that you need to locate. The batteries last about a year. The StickNFind smart phone application helps you find your missing items and life forms. It is also advertised as a kind of early warning system: "stick the Stick-N-Find on your wife’s car. Once she pulls in the driveway, you get a notification, clean your mess, and go wash dishes before she comes in." That is some fast dishwashing.

The company that makes StickNFind is seeking $70,000 on Indiegogo. So far they've received close to $40,000 with 42 days left in the campaign.

StickNFind

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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shutz

But what do you do if you lose your phone?
- dr15
  
  You call it with another phone…
  - nowimnothing
    
    Unless the battery on the first phone is dead :(
    - Chentzilla
      
      Then it’s sticker time!
- Spencer Brown-Pearn
  
  Put a stickNfind on it (or it’s case), then use your friend’s, spouse’s, roommate’s, etc phone to find it!
- http://profiles.google.com/macrumpton Michael Crumpton
  
  You have another stick and find attached to your phone, and you use your spouses phone to find it.
noah django

this is a great idea.
I read the quote about washing the dishes before your wife gets out of the car to my roommate. he goes “more like put the joint out and turn off the porno.” XD
- sqyntz
  
  or turn on the porno and get out the joints…to each their own
  - noah django
    
    well played, sir. my roommate is divorced, go figure.
Mike Noordijk

I believe you misunderstand, the idea is to actually be in the act of washing dishes when your wife walks in, this is often even better than having the dishes washed already (your strenuous efforts easily overlooked). Pro Tip: Be surprised when she comes in, because you were washing dishes SO HARD that you didn’t even notice she was home!
- RedShirt77
  
  This sort of trick might make up for the fact that my lady friend will no longer need me for the most frequent task of finding where she left things.
  
  Two questions
  
  1. Is it that the blue tooth antenna is not directional that you can’t have a round radar showing the direction? ( I would think you could add that funcion based on having the thing assume in that if things get further away that they are behind you, etc…. Maybe put a little compass in the sticker.
  
  2. Does the signal not fade as the battery loses power, wouldn’t that cause everything to look far away at the end of the year?
  
  ok 3
  
  3. How fine is the resolution? If I move 6 inches closer to something does it know that or do I have to move feet to pick something up?
http://twitter.com/KKyle Kyle Kilzer

I think these would be great to drop into my kids’ shoes ala Nike+. Cut a little mold under the insole, and then be able to stress a little less in places like disneyland.
- Robert
  
  Aren’t children a little large to lose sight of if they’re within 30 feet of you, which is the range of Bluetooth? I mean, if you can’t see them when they’re that close, you’re probably in a mosh pit. Or a Justin Bieber concert, so they’re already lost. Or…?
Anton Dyudin

This reminds me of the RFID tracker that got featured about a year ago
- nowimnothing
  
  I would think RFID would be better, no batteries to worry about.
  - Spencer Brown-Pearn
    
    What’s the range on RFID?
    - nowimnothing
      
      I think it depends on the strength of the reader, because the RFID is just a passive chip that you bounce the signal off of. I have heard around 40′. The only problem I can think of here is triangulation. The bluetooth chip is active and can give a second reference point to help isolate the location. One reference point and ‘ping’ on an RFID ship would probably be harder to map. Also RFID is not as ubiquitous as bluetooth on smartphones.
planettom

I would put this on my often-elusive handheld GPS unit!
http://bluestockingfarm.blogspot.com/ Faith

This is genius. Just “contributed”.
Ryan Lenethen

Reminds me of the Alien motion detector. +10pts if you make it make that creepy sweeping noise as well.

THEY’RE RIGHT BEHIND YOU OMG!!!111!!ONE!!!
- http://twitter.com/spleenal Spleenal
  
  Grrrr Ryan I was going to say that! “Where’s the tv remote?” “5 meters…4…3″ “That can’t be; that’s inside the room!”
http://www.littlecirclesvt.com MikeB

“the first feature is a radar screen that will display all your devices in a familiar radar like screen…”

i must be out of it, as i don’t have any radar screens to base my familiarity
Michael Polo

The space-based laser weapons system is extra though…..
rattypilgrim

As if this device will be used only to find “lost objects”.
In the 19th century Walt Whitman wrote about the Right to Loaf, an idea in opposition to hard working, Puritanical America.

It’s time for people to understand they have the right to be somewhere free of detection and that includes people’s partners or high school kids who decide to cut a class or the whole day.

Constant monitoring of human beings does nothing to insure security or safety but security has become a big business that has convinced too many people with any authority over others that it does.
- http://post404.com/ Randall “texrat” Arnold
  
  Yeah, I envision MiB furtively sticking random citizens with these things. They’ll need a velcro model, too, so they can just flip them like Spider Tracers at passerby. Then they just need to make sure there’s always an agent within range of each taggee. Hmmm, new word?
Donald Petersen

Not that he’s anything like a dead ringer or anything, but the guy looks juuuuust enough like Jason Jones that when he started talking about the Virtual Leash feature at 1:37, I half-expected the little girl to explode when she got too far from the phone.
Andrew Singleton

Reminds me of something i saw in one of Doctorows books.

I like the potential this has.
- Shibi_SF
  
  I also recognized this from one of Doctorow’s books. ‘Makers’? I don’t remember which…
  - http://twitter.com/voroxpete Peter Brunton
    
    It was Makers indeed, and that was my first thought on seeing this article. Finally, Cory can stop all that tiresome production of actual interesting original content and get down to the real brass-tacks hard grind of endless patent suits. That’s what makes the economy tick.
http://www.facebook.com/michael.bisbee.31 Michael Bisbee

The nerdy optimist in me says this has a lot of good potential uses. The cynical side says this could be used in a lot of bad ways too.
http://www.fatjerry.com Dimmer

So with two stickers and an extra limb I may actually be able to find my ass with both hands. Progress!
- Shibi_SF
  
  Also… with one (or even two) arms tied behind your back!
Mister44

It looks like something you would use to find a lost xenomorph.
http://twitter.com/TokyoSpark TokyoSpark

That radar interface looks awfully familiar… does it also track incoming Aliens via their heat signatures? If it does I’m in.
http://twitter.com/AbelUndercity Abel Undercity

Waiting for the later model that lets me track it via my spider-sense.

Also, incidentally, waiting on spider-sense.
http://twitter.com/laripley laripley

Stalkerrific.
- rattypilgrim
  
  Exactly. And that’s not a good thing.
  - Rindan
    
    Paranoid much? It has a tiny radius. Any human wearing one is going to be within easy sight of you. You also need to somehow get the tag on them. If someone is breaking into your house and putting tags on your clothing, I think you have WAY bigger problems than the fact that when you are in plain sight they can also pick you up on their hand held.
    
    If you have a psycho stalking you, this isn’t going to make it any easier for them. Relax.
    - rattypilgrim
      
      An employer could track an employees by attaching something like this to the employee’s car or dropping it in a bag, purse, etc. A “friend” could do the same thing. Maybe this device doesn’t quite have those capabilities but you can see one coming that does.
      
      Paranoid? No, but protective of my civil liberties and privacy and thinking the future doesn’t look too good in those respects.
      - http://twitter.com/DrunkOnNyquil Drunk On NyQuil
        
        Seriously? They’ve been tagging company vehicles with GPS, where I work for almost 2 years, so they know where we go.
      - rattypilgrim
        
        To me it’s the same thing as testing employees for drug use; a total abuse of power and disdain for civil rights. people who say it shouldn’t bother anyone unless they have something to hide might as well line up for their microchips now, before the rush. (semicolon alert!)
    - http://twitter.com/laripley laripley
      
      Please don’t condescend. Myself and about 2/3 of all the women I know have been stalked by someone we met or had someone we dated (or married) aggressively monitor and track us. It’s quite common. I’m concerned about devices that make it easier for people to be monitored constantly by the state, corporations & employers, by “psychos” (by which you seem to mean random strangers) but also by the statistically most likely people – abusive partners (usually – from a strictly statistical standpoint again) these are men.
      
      It would be very easy for someone whom you know casually, or whom you are trapped in an abusive relationship with, to make use of this to harass you. Monitoring where you are going, when you leave, when you return, how long you stay away, who you spend time with, these are very common acts of abusers, and this would absolutely make it easier for them.
      - rattypilgrim
        
        You said it better than I did. Thanks. I hope it gets through to some of those who feel no threat due to their skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or religion, the ones who can’t imagine being targeted by the people who look just like them.
      - Rindan
        
        First, I never said anything about random strangers. My best friend who was stalked was stalked by a “psycho”, who was her ex-boyfriend. Anyone stalking anyone gets a solid “psycho” rating in my book.
        
        More to the point, you are missing my point. My point is that this, from a purely technological point of view, can’t do what you fear. No one can stalk you with it. It finds stuff within a few tens of feet radius. That is it. Your stalker has to be looking at at you in order track you in which case he can just, you know, use his eyes.
        
        More to the point, if there is someone who has that much access where they could covertly put a tag on you, and these are not that small, so I am struggling to figure out where they could hide it, without you noticing, they are close enough to get your cell phone. This glorified RFID tag can’t track you to the ends of the earth, but your cell phone can. A reasonably technologically literate person can drop a stealthed program that reports your every single move via GPS. I have such a program sitting on my phone for finding it if it is lost or stolen.
        
        I’m not saying that your fears of stalking aren’t valid, just that this is the wrong technology to be afraid of. Your cell phone is vastly more capable and a few orders of magnitude more scary. Hell, a boring old camera is scarier and can track you better. Worrying about this glorified RFID tag is like worrying about the effects of high altitude solar radiation while you are in a crashing airplane with its wings ripped off.
      - rattypilgrim
        
        Let’s call it a gateway device. Today it’s a few tens of feet radius. Tomorrow…
      - http://post404.com/ Randall “texrat” Arnold
        
        rattypilgrim, you can only get so much out of devices this small. In order to get to appreciable stalker distances, you have to go up significantly in antenna size and power. Guess what? THOSE device already exist.
      - http://twitter.com/laripley laripley
        
        Thanks, that information is relevant to me and addresses my concerns. Whenever I see articles about tracking devices, I am concerned if these issues are not directly addressed.
        
        I see no need to “relax” about that, because that is one of the first things we should ALL be concerned about when there are new technologies waved around excitedly – how do they affect the situation of the most vulnerable?
        
        Too often the default assumption is that we shouldn’t be so suspicious. Why shouldn’t we? Aren’t there a lot of vulnerable people who are abused every day in all kinds of ways? And isn’t technology complicit in that alongside everything else? Nothing makes technology by default be a neutral force.Therefore, convenience, or simple newness is not enough for me to be excited about tech unless I know it isn’t going to make things worse for people.
      - http://post404.com/ Randall “texrat” Arnold
        
        That distance limit tends to be a stalker dealbreaker
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md98igSpmS1qcqtduo1_500.gif wetitnpetit

I think these stickers are going to promote binge drinking. No longer will you have to remember where you put your keys, car, and wallet. Bottoms up!
- http://twitter.com/kajenius jenius
  
  doubtfull wont take off. Bluetooth will drain that battery in a matter of a day or two max
  - Nick Hayday
    
    article and video both say a year….
http://twitter.com/jemmypreneur James Singh

I had always wished for this! Good to know that it’s there now!
http://www.facebook.com/farhandesigner Farhan Khan

Wow nice technology in everybody range…
http://www.facebook.com/derrick.haskins.98 Derrick Haskins

Shut up and take my money!
Ipo

This could change my life.
http://www.facebook.com/mary.barnes.357622 Mary Barnes

I want it NOW! Wait, where did I put my checkbook?
Mohamed Ikbel Boulabiar

1998 http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/attarchive/bat/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=721271922 Michelle Wood Kennedy

Hey, if there is a battery in this sticker, everyone just has to be careful about young ones not getting ahold of it and eating it or sticking it in their mouths. Very dangerous!
Parker McIntosh

You could have an entire market for disc golfers if you could loose the light and speaker option, hopefully allowing it to be more arrow dynamic. I would love to see this, even help push it here in Austin, tx.either way, I am going to try this existing version.