Samsung has something worth your time if you like to keep tabs on kids, pets or other cherished items. The Korea electronics giant just announced Connect Tag,..
Samsung has something worth your time if you like to keep tabs on kids, pets or other cherished items. The Korea electronics giant just announced Connect Tag, a small internet-enabled device that tracks location and lasts a week between charges.
In other words, this is a similar offering to existing electronic tagging devices from the likes of Tile, the U. S. startup that pulled in $25 million earlier this year and has picked up nearly $60 million from investors to date.
Tile offers more flexibility on form factor but Samsung has gone for the clean white look with the Connect Tag, which measures 4.21 cm x 1.19 cm. The company puts that one-week battery life down to its use of narrowband network technology — a standard that optimizes power usage through more conservative use of data — and it claims its tags are the first of their kind to utilize it.
On the tech side, Samsung is using a combination GPS, Wi-Fi-based positioning and Cell ID to triangulate a device’s location with accuracy. It also works with Samsung’s SmartThings ecosystem, which means you could set up a geo fence around your house, for example, to trigger lights or switch on the TV automatically when you (and your tag) return home.
More standard notification options include a location finder Android app, which pulls up the location at the push of a button, and periodic notifications that keep you regularly informed on the location of a child or, say, a pet when you are at the office or elsewhere.
We don’t have a price yet, but the Samsung Connect Tag will go on sale in Korea first before expanding to other countries “in the coming months.”
