TrackR atlas locates your lost items

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You’ll never misplace things (or pets) again!

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Whether you’re an organized or messy person, you inevitably lose things or forget the last spot you saw it. What is more frustrating is that you make a bigger mess just trying to find it. You can keep a mental map of where you put things in your home, but wouldn’t it be much easier if your phone did that for you? Now with TrackR atlas, you can.

Fittingly named, TrackR atlas maps out your home and enables room-based item monitoring of your BLE-based items. This is the second project to come from the team that created the successful TrackR bravo, a small Bluetooth tracking device that attaches to your valuable items. Atlas works with bravo and other wireless trackers to better organize your home.

The TrackR atlas plugs into a wall socket in each room of your home, and utilizes both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy radios to detect the presence of items that have TrackR devices or third-party Bluetooth-based trackers attached to them. From the Android and iOS app, you can locate which room all of your items are in your home.

Atlas can also notify you when things move around or leave the house. This is perfect if you have pets that tend to wander off. Among its other features, atlas has remote ringing, Amazon Alexa voice-activation, and is backed by the Crowd GPS network so you can track your items when they are missing outside of your home. You never have to aimlessly search for things again!

The tiny unit has an 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi radio with a range of 230 feet (70 meters), and Bluetooth 4.0 with a range up to 98 feet (30 meters). It supports wall sockets for the U.S., UK, Australia and most of Europe.

Tired of misplacing things? Head over to TrackR’s Indiegogo campaign, where they have already more than tripled their $50,000 goal. You’ll be able to pinpoint the location of your valuables starting June 2016.

LightBug is a solar-powered GPS tracker

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LightBug takes the best features of a Bluetooth tag and combines them with the functionality of a full GPS/GPRS tracker.

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While there are plenty of trackers available today, a vast majority of them rely on Bluetooth to detect the whereabouts of the device. However, once out of range, these trackers essentially serve very little purpose. That’s where LightBug is looking to come in handy.

No larger than a stick of gum, the LightBug is small enough to discreetly clip onto a keychain, bag, clothes, pets or anything else you don’t want to lose, and unlike others on the market, packs GPS capabilities. Meaning, in the event a Bluetooth connection is broken, you’ll still be able to pinpoint an object with an accuracy of 50cm. The gadget works by sending its location over any available mobile phone network via a roaming SIM. What’s more, the LightBug is solar powered, and can be charged through its microUSB port should it need a quick boost of juice.

Aside from everyday items, LightBug can also help parents keep tabs on wandering children or caregivers to monitor the elderly, particularly those suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s. It can even be employed for fitness-related activities as it can be worn on your shoe and used to track your runs.

How it works is pretty simple. GPS satellites tell LightBug where it is. The GPRS network sends the location to the cloud, where the information is securely stored. This data is then relayed to LightBug’s accompanying app. The app allows you to manage push notifications, establish geofences, retrieve historical data, sound a buzzer and launch navigation.

Additionally, alerts can be setup for a wide range of things, such as proximity to your phone. Proximity alerts will detect if the unit is no longer nearby using Bluetooth and will trigger automatic position updates. Alternatively, you can draw areas on a map that are either “safe zones” or “danger zones” and receive notifications when boundaries are crossed. Other notification triggers include time of day, detection of a falls and speed.

“LightBug is like a Bluetooth proximity tag on steroids because it’s still useful when you’re not near it. Unlike other tags, it doesn’t rely on loads of people having the same app installed because it can determine and send its location on its own. Like Bluetooth Tags though, you can use the app to make the buzzer ring to help you find stuff, and also use your phone to home in on it, helping you find stuff quicker indoors,” the team writes.

Measuring just 45mm x 23.5mm x 11mm in size and weighing only 20g, the LightBug can be unnoticeably attached to anything from your bag to your drone. In terms of hardware, the device is equipped with an ATxmega128A4U MCU, an accelerometer for movement detection, a pair of solar panels and a microUSB port for charging, a LiPo battery, a piezo buzzer for alerts, an LED and an GSM/GPRS modem.

“Basically, LightBug integrates an old school mobile phone, solar panels, a solar charger, Bluetooth, a really, really good GPS and has amazing battery life,” its creators add.

Looking ahead, the team hopes to release a public API early next year, which will enable you to build apps around LightBug — whether that’s a location-based game for your pet or a scavenger hunt for you and your friends. Aside from that, they will be integrating the tracker with IFTTT.

Tired of losing things? Head over to its Kickstarter campaign, where LightBug is currently seeking $77,782. Delivery is expected to begin in January 2016.