As I was wandering the halls of CES this past January in Las Vegas I stumbled upon a very interesting booth chock-full of geeky looking devices that not only looked great but served a very important purpose.
What Are foundmi Trackers?
foundmi are small portable Bluetooth tracking devices that you attach to the item you want to track and when paired with your smartphone it can be used for the following:
- Find your phone: Double click the button on your foundmi to cause your phone to ring, even on silent
- Find foundmi Tracker: Tap the ‘find’ button in the foundmi app to find your foundmi tracker
- Selfie Mode: In selfie mode you can double-click the button on your foundmi to snap a photo using the in app viewfinder
- Map: If you leave your foundmi behind you can go to the foundmi app and check the Map to see its last known location
There are a few things that set the foundmi trackers apart from all the other Bluetooth tracking devices out on the market today. The first feature is that of a replaceable battery. Most trackers on the market have the batteries built into the device in such a way that when the battery dies so does your tracker. Not the case with foundmi. The foundmi trackers have a small removable battery cover on the back that you can slide off and replace the small CR2032 coin cell battery yourself in a matter of seconds. But the real difference between foundmi and the other trackers on the market is their “style.” I think the folks at foundmi explain this rather well:
“foundmi started when we got tired of misplacing our keys, laptops and generally anything else. Resolving to stop losing everything we searched the market for some tracking devices, but ultimately there was nothing out there that fit our style. The stuff we found was bland, boring and lacked extra features we knew we wanted, so we took it upon ourselves to create something better. We knew that we were fans of comics, movies and games and really wanted to incorporate that into our product. We decided we’d create a product that appealed to fans, and had great functionality. That birthed foundmi.”
Verdict
After stopping into the foundmi booth at CES and chatting with them they sent me home with two of their trackers. So what did I choose to use my trackers with? One went on my car keys and the other went in my Nintendo Switch carrying case. These are two items that tend to leave the house quite a bit and are not easily replaced. I would like to tell you my Nintendo Switch is the more expensive of these items but the so-called “smart” key fobs are bloody expensive anymore!
Setting up the foundmi trackers was as easy as flipping open the battery slot in the back of the device, popping in the battery and paring each device with the foundmi smart phone app. The app lets you use your own photos to customize the icon of each of your trackers. So if you have more than one foundmi tracker it makes it easy to tell right away which tracker you need to locate in order to find the device/item you are looking for. I don’t like carrying a lot of stuff in my pockets so I was worried that adding a foundmi to my key fob was going to make it too bulky for my liking but that wasn’t the case. The tracker added just enough extra material to my key to make it easier to pull out of my pocket and hand to someone else but it didn’t add enough bulk to be any more noticeable in my pocket. Having two teenage drivers in my house my car key ends up getting passed around a lot so this not only sets my car key apart but it allows me to find it when it doesn’t make its way back into my pocket or “man purse” after one of my teenagers has returned home. I already own and wear an Apple Watch so the selfie mode and the ability to find my iPhone are already features that I had with my Apple Watch, but for those without an Apple Watch these can be really killer features.
The one feature that the foundmi trackers don’t have is that of long-range tracking. If you aren’t within 100 feet of your device then you are out of luck. So foundmi isn’t meant to be a something you use to track your things after they have been stolen (at least not in most cases). But if you are looking for a truly stylish (but geeky) way to keep track of a couple of items you are constantly misplacing then you need to give the foundmi trackers a serious look. Between Star Wars, DC Comics, Marvel, My Little Pony, Power Rangers, Five Nights At Freddy’s, Rick and Morty, and Halo you are bound to find something that suits your taste. Each foundmi tracker runs about $25 and you can buy them directly from the foundmi website or from Amazon.com.
Disclaimer: The folks at foundmi sent me home from CES with a couple of these trackers and I did the best I could to try to lose them!
Interesting concept with a cool look. Something quite satisfying about seeing a Darth impersonator protect your most treasured device.
I need to look into this area more. It certainly looks like a mobile connection is needed if you truly want some long range action.
Best
Chris
You are correct, the trackers are Bluetooth only so you need to be within about 100 ft of them to be able to track and activate the audible beacon sound to find them. They are designed so that the location tracking and map give you a rough sense of where it is located and then you use the audible beacon to find the lost tracker from there.
Hey Skip,
I am looking for something what can track at least 500 ft. I know bluetooth technology can work that much long. Would you please suggest me which device I can use instead of foundmi Tracker?
Regards
Well, if your need was just 300 ft the Tile Pro would work. But for 500 ft or more you have two options. Either rely on the crowdsourcing feature on the Tile smartphone app (this allows any other Tile app user that is within range of your item to report back to you via the Tile app) or to look into GPS tracking devices (which are larger and more costly). The Crowdsourcing feature of Tile would work for things like a bike that could potentially be stolen and moved many miles and most likely come into contact with another Tile app user. But if you are using the tracker in a large building without a lot of other people then crowdsourcing won’t do you much good. Hope that helps focus your search a bit more.
Thank You Skip!