Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia has rolled out a new product that will launch in April called Treasure Tag. The Nokia Treasure Tag is a small square device that is designed to be attached to your belongings to help you keep track of them. This might be the perfect thing for those that tend to lose their keys or bag all the time.

When you walk away with your smartphone and leave your keys on the counter, the Treasure Tags will produce an audible tone. If you take the keys and leave the smartphone, the alarm will sound. The idea is that the sound will remind you to grab up all your belongings and help you find them.

The tags sync via NFC and Bluetooth to your mobile device. The Treasure Tag is 30 x 30 x 10mm, making it about half the size of a matchbox. Each one weighs just 13 grams, so you won’t even notice it inside your bag or on your keys. Battery life for each Treasure Tag is about six months, and they can be replaced with an inexpensive CR-2032 coin cell battery.

Out of the box, the Treasure Tag integrates with Nokia phones running Windows Phone for the OS. The tags will also be supported via a third-party app for iPhone and Android users. The apps will support up to four tags at once and each tag will cost about $30(USD).

The folks over at Sceptre have just announced the SoundPal, which happens to be a portable Bluetooth speaker that is not short on the stylish side of things. In fact, the SoundPal also doubles up as an audio enhancer which is capable of blasting up to half a dozen hours of music on the go, with but a single full charge of its battery. You will find state-of-the-art technology accompany the SoundPal in addition to a wide array of accessories, making it the perfect solution for music lovers who want to enjoy stunning audio in a trendy package.

Just how well does the SoundPal perform? For starters, it is capable of delivering room-filling sound thanks to its pair of active drivers, where there will also be one passive bass radiator in addition to an integrated amplifier. Specially designed to be universally compatible, the portable speaker will also be equipped with NFC and Bluetooth connectivity, so that it will be a snap when it comes to hooking up to smartphones, music players, and tablets among others.

In addition, the SoundPal will also feature a 3.5 mm line-in cable for those of you living in the previous century and do not happen to own any single device that has Bluetooth capability. The best of both worlds, basically, is offered with the SoundPal, where those using legacy systems such as CRT TVs, old school computers and the ilk will still be able to enjoy audio over the SoundPal without missing a beat. Other than that, the SoundPal will also come equipped with a microSD memory card reader, so that users will be able to enjoy music straight from the microSD memory card itself.

The Sceptre SP05032 SoundPal has an asking price of $99.99, which should not be too expensive for anyone who is in the market for a decent performer.

Press Release
[ Sceptre SoundPal portable Bluetooth speaker announced copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

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Nokia has unveiled a new accessory designed to make sure users of its Lumia smartphone are never parted from their handset. Or at least, that when they leave the house with their tagged keys or bag, they’ll be reminded to pick up their phone too. Or vice versa.

Called Treasure Tag, the smart fob can be paired via NFC or Bluetooth 4.0 with a Lumia smartphone running the Lumia Black update to link the two devices — so that if either one moves out of range of the other an alarm sounds on both to alert the user that all is not well with their favourite gadget.

Now there are scores and scores of startups building lost and found gizmos. One of which, Tile, which we covered last summer, managed to amass $2.6 million in crowdfunding before the field started getting insanely crowded. And now Nokia has thrown its hat into the ring — although most lost and found startups aren’t going to see the Treasure Tag as any kind of competition.

For one thing, Nokia’s system is currently* a closed one, limited to use with a sub-set of Lumia smartphones, rather than allowing the ability to tag any kind of treasured possession (inanimate or otherwise). (*Nokia does say there will also be third-party apps for Treasure Tag to support Android and iOS devices in future.)

Nokia’s tag also offers a very limited feature-set vs some of the more elaborate tracker tag concepts out there. Whereas Tile’s plan, for instance, is to build a distributed network of other Tile users so that the community  of users can expand its location-pinpointing range, Treasure Tag is not so smart, with only the paired link between phone and tag to go on.

So expect its alarm to sound when you’re popping to the toilet with your keys in your pocket but not your phone, for instance. (The alarm can be muted or put to sleep via the corresponding app, or you can long press on the tag itself to deactivate it — all of which sounds like a fair bit of hassle.)

The Treasure Tag system also supports locating a lost tagged item, such as your keys or bag, on a map within the app — or it will if you are within range of it. It can only report the last known location, so if the item has been moved since it’s not going to turn up.

And if you want to tag multiple items to link them to your phone, you’ll need to buy multiple Treasure Tags. Up to four different tags can be simultaneously connected to the handset — with the ability to assign ready-made icons to each (such as a keys icon), or use a photo, to try and make the managing multiple tags scenario less confusing.

Either way, with the tags themselves being relatively large vs some of the tracker startup competition — each Treasure Tag is a roughly matchbox sized 30 x 30 x 10mm — it’s not exactly an elegant solution to forgetfulness. Forget slipping a tag inside your wallet, for instance, as you can with the likes of Protag Elite.

The battery life of each Treasure Tag is pegged at ‘up to six months’. A standard coin cell type battery that’s user replaceable powers each tag.

Nokia said it expects the Treasure Tag to go on sale via global retailers in April, costing €24,90 ($29.90). Colour options are the bright yellow and cyan that Nokia also uses for its phone range, as well as white or black.

Nokia has gone official with the introduction of its latest gadget called the Treasure Tag. We talked about the Treasure Tag device back in July of last year when the … Continue reading