Within 150 feet the XY Find It Bluetooth tracking beacons are fantastic at allowing you to locate your chameleons, car keys, and walking notebooks.
What happens if you go beyond the Bluetooth range? You’re screwed.
Seriously, traverse beyond the XY’s reach and you become at the mercy of anyone else who has the “XY Find It” app, because your own phone sure as shit will not let you in on where the beacon and your precious puppy have gone. That is my only gripe.
I will leave it up to you, folks, as to whether or not you feel that is enough reason not to splurge on the successfully Kickstarter-funded twenty dollar XY’s.
Within range of the Bluetooth the app will allow your Droid or iPhone to locate the beacon via a “Cold, Warmer, Warm, Warmer, HOT” system that is pretty accurate at locating elusive kittens hiding in odd corners, as mine like to do.
For keys that have a way of walking out on where you left them, all on their own, this little device can be damn good at getting you to the jingling key-ring in time for a day of work (and early in the A.M. I cannot see straight so this XY Find It beacon on the keychain makes things a lot easier).
The problem – not that XY claims that they do anything beyond locate within 150 feet of Bluetooth range – is that in a realistic world you can leave something behind and all that the XY app says when you are beyond is that it is “Cold” and has no bars in its octagon of “Cold/Warm.”
There is a contingency plan: mark your XY as “Lost” and let others with the app sweep areas until their 150 feet of Bluetooth range has a blip on the “Cold” to “Hot” radar.
In other words (until everyone has an XY app) . . . you are fucked.
Just curious, but did you actually try to use the App or did you simply take stock photos and write a blind piece on some new hardware?
If you used it, did you notice that the last GPS location of your XY tag is shown on a map, and when that last GPS location was current? So, you know, if you didn’t leave it in a taxi, you are probably pretty set to find it since you know exactly where it is on good old Google Maps.
@Ross Bennett -Just curious, did you actually try to read the review or did you simply write a blind, stock response to a not-quite glowing review?
I have yet to, you know, leave it him a taxi, but my dog does have legs, and this device simply does not work for that situation. Keys in the morning? Great! Four-legged (or two legged, for that matter) wanderers? Not so much.
(And my apologies, I couldn’t find any appropriate stock images, but I tried)
I have one of these and agree with the weakness. Knowing where it last was is useless if I am too far away to track it. Put it on my cat and I have to roam around until I am close enough to her.