Nifty New Tech Lets You Tag the Things You're Always Losing With Stickers and Find Them With Your Smartphone Later

We all have those things we are notorious for losing. Commonly it's a set of keys, an umbrella, pair of gloves or a wallet. Wouldn't it be nice if there was some way of locating these things in a fashion similar to how you might find your cellphone by calling it with another device?

A idea for a new piece of technology being financed through the crowd-funding site Indigogo wants to create just that. The idea for "Stick-N-Find" is that you would place a small (about the size of a quarter) sticker with Bluetooth technology embedded onto the item you so often lose. The stickers are equipped with a flashing light and buzzer to help you find them when needed. The corresponding smartphone app has radar detection that shows you how far away the items are from your phone. To find them, you play a game of "hot and cold" seeing if you're walking closer to or further away from the lost item. When you're close enough, you can make it flash and/or buzz.

(Image: StickNFind via Indigogo)

The stickers have a 100-foot range and a replaceable battery that lasts a year.

Another cool feature of the app is the "virtual leash." Here's how that works:

This allows you to create a virtual Leash on a sticker, if that sticker moves away more than the approximate selected distance from your phone, your phone will Alarm you. You can even select the type of Alarms per different Stickers.

You can also create a Reverse Virtual Leash: You put a Sticker on your keys etc, if you forget your phone behind, the sticker on keys will buzz.You have to have the SticNFind app running on the background for the reverse Virtual leash to work.

(Image: StickNFind via Indigogo)

Watch this video describing more about Stick-N-Find:

The Stick-N-Find system is recommended for keeping tabs on everything from your iPad, cameras and laptops to even your children (place the sticker on their shoe) and pets (put the sticker on their collar). Here are a few other suggested applications:

Imagine you could Stick a Stick-N-Find Sticker on your Suitcase. When all the suitcases start coming out on the belt, you can sit down and wait. Once your Suitcase is within Range, your phone will Alert you, you can get up, and take your suitcase.

You could also 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.

The project itself had a goal of raising $70,000 to bring the idea to fruition. With less than 10 days left on Indigogo to fund the project, it has exceeded its goal raising more than $535,000.

The Stick-N-Find team expects to have an Android version of the app available in March, supporting Bluetooth 4.0. An iOS version, pending Apple approval, would be ready in the summer.

Read more about the project here.

(H/T Engadget via Reddit)