Looking through their data, it appears that the energy storage unit will
drain to flat if the device is not regularly within a few meters of a high
powered wifi router with a high level of activity.  This might work for
some scenarios such as 'lost the remote' if your router is in the living
room, or for a lost key finder if you tend to keep your keys next to the
wifi router while at home.

 However, there is not yet info on how many finding beeps the device can
deliver from, say, a half charged power cell before it runs flat.  If
something is really lost then it's going to take perhaps a dozen beeps to
locate it.

-AK




On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 8:34 AM, Bob Blick <bobblick@ftml.net> wrote:

> Looks like there are some skeptics:
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/24/ifind_kickstarter/
>
> Bob
>
> On Thu, Jun 19, 2014, at 04:48 PM, Dwayne Reid wrote:
> > Not sure if this is appropriate, but I ran across something
> > interesting a few days ago and have decided to plunk down some of my
> > hard-earned cash.
> >
> > These are a little active tag that uses Bluetooth to locate lost
> > items.  The tag emits a (supposedly) loud sound when activated with
> > their app on either iOS or Android devices.
> >
> >  From the Kickstarter page: "iFind is the next generation item
> > locating tag. The tag communicates with your iOS or Android devices
> > using Bluetooth and will never need to be charged. The iFind tag can
> > be attached to all of your personal items , and you only need your
> > phone to find them. Tag any item that you want, and it's at your
> > fingertips."
> >
> > They go on to mention that the unit does not ever need to have the
> > battery changed because it is charged by harvesting local
> > electromagnetic energy.
> >
> > Although the claims see a little far-fetched, the bio's of the
> > principles make for interesting reading.  They seem to have seriously
> > techy backgrounds (Freescale Semiconductor, Phillips Semiconductor,
> > etc).  They also mention that they have 4 patents pending in both the
> > US and China on the technology used.
> >
> > <
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/yuansong84/ifind-the-worlds-first-ba=
ttery-free-item-locating
> >
> >
> > Seems plausible enough for me to plop down $130 for 10 tags.
> >
> > 10 days left in the funding cycle: $25,000 funding goal, $495,386
> > pledged so far.
> >
> > dwayne
>
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>
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