It is very annoying when you buy something expensive and you lose it or it gets stolen. But there are some technical solutions to prevent that.
Crowd GPS Tags
Crowd GPS devices use Bluetooth and connect with Smartphones. Whenever another person has the App installed, he/she sends the location of all devices to a server. This means as long as anybody is near the GPS tag, you can hope to find your stuff again.
Tile
Tile is such a crowd GPS device.
There is no android app yet.
TinTag
TinTag is a 28mm × 39.2mm device. Its battery lasts for 4 months. It has an LED and a buzzer as well as bluetooth. The bluetooth connection lasts for 100m.
It has a indigogo campagain. 10 Tintag devices and 1 base charger cost 105 US-Dollar.
Tintag app works on Android phones (version 4.3 and 4.4) and iPhone. It doesn't work yet on Windows Phones or Blackberry.
TrackR bravo
TrackR bravo is just another tagging device.
TrackR is compatible with Android 4.4 (see App) and iPhone 4s & later, iPad 3rd Generation & later. It works with Bluetooth 4.0. It uses a CR1616 coin cell battery.
It is 31mm in diameter and 3.5mm height.
It can detect bluetooth devices up to 30m.
One TrackR costs 29 US-Dollar, 10 cost 99 US-Dollar.
StickNFind
StickNFind is probably the smallest Crowd GPS tag. It was on indiegogo and raised 931.870 US-Dollar.
It works with Android and iOS, as long as you have Bluetooth 4.0.
Specs
- Technology: Bluetooth 4.0 (Bluetooth Low Energy)
- Range: Approximate 30m with line of sight.
- Battery: Lasts up-to 1 year based on 30 minutes per day average use.
- Battery Type: CR2016 watch battery. Battery is replaceable
- Cost: A 10 pack costs 200 US-Dollar.
- Dimensions
- Shape: Cylindric
- Diameter: 2.4cm diameter
- Thickness: 4mm
- Weight: 4.5g
SelectaDNA
Bicycles
Bicycles sometimes have a number on the frame. In German, it is called Fahrradrahmennummer. In Germany, you can sometimes go to the police and they will add such a number to your bike. In case it gets stolen and the police finds it, they can look at their records and give it back to you. Eventually. I'm not sure how good this works. But it doesn't cost anything, so why not?
Another way is uglification. One way to do this is using these stickers.
Another way is putting lots of reflecting stuff on it. That has the advantage of giving you extra security as drivers can see you more easily.
USB-Sticks
I always add a README.txt to the USB stick with the following content:
## German
Dieser USB-Stick gehört Martin Thoma.
Wenn er verloren wurde, wäre es toll, wenn Sie eine E-Mail an
[email protected] schreiben würden.
--------------------------------------------------------------
## English
This USB stick belongs to Martin Thoma.
If it was lost, please send an e-mail to [email protected].
Luggage
I always leave a note in my luggage with the following content:
Martin Thoma
Parkstr. 17
76131 Karlsruhe
Tel.: XXXX
E-Mail: [email protected]
House
Locks and keys... but you can lose your keys or forget them inside.
When you lose your keys, you have to replace all locks. That's a problem with traditional keys. But I could imagine that a good keycard lock does not have this flaw. You "simply" tell the system that a card was lost and replace the cheap card - not the expensive lock. The card should only contain a long number. If the number is one of the allowed numbers, one can enter. If not, the system locks for 2 seconds. That should effectively prevent brute force.
Smart Phones
Android device manager