We’ve all seen the Bluetooth tracker market take off in the last couple of years — and there are plenty of them now available — but Pixie sets itself aside from the others because it not only tracks your items, it can actually show you the item’s location using augmented reality.
Wait, what?
Like any other Bluetooth tracker, Pixie can be affixed to any item that you want to keep track of — things like your wallet, keys, a suitcase, your backpack, purse, whatever. The app will let you know if they item is close by, and it will guide you to the item using these steps:
• Map it – With a motion similar to taking a panoramic photo, a simple scan of the room maps the immediate environment and locates Pixified items’ positions relative to the user.
• Show it – The Pixie app reveals and points users to the location of the item with the Pixie Pointer, an arrow icon that shows both the direction and distance from the object. Pixie also has a unique, new trick up its sleeve – Pixie Dust! Pixie displays an augmented reality overlay consisting of Pixie Dust that swarms to show where the item is in the room. The Pixie Dust and Pointer can even see through walls and objects to guide users to items that are hiding behind a cushion, in a drawer or in an adjoining room.
• Grab it – Once users are within five feet of the lost item, the Pixie app acts like a metal detector to accurately zero-in on the target. The Pixie app provides visual and audio guidance to tell users if they are getting closer or farther away from the exact location of the object.
Pixie can locate and guide you to the item down to inches — not feet, and it has an “outdoor range of 150 feet and works within 30-50 feet indoors.”
The magic and accuracy of Pixie is the product of a highly advanced Location of Things (LoT) platform that creates micro-mesh networks in which all Pixie Points continually signal and communicate their relative distance from one another so that maps of all the Pixie Points can be calculated using similar principles to that of GPS systems. It is an entirely new technology architecture that was a significant and formidable undertaking, taking over three years to develop resulting in 10 patents to date.
So here’s how it works. A Pixie Point is affixed to a mobile phone; this acts as an anchor, and you attach the remaining points to “Pixified” objects. “Each Pixie Point acts like a small satellite, providing distance information from each other just like GPS. They constantly communicate with each other through their internal, innovative signaling technology that continually triangulates their positions relative to each other within a 150 foot outdoor or 50-foot indoor range. The more Pixies in a network the greater the accuracy of the maps.”
Pixie Points have a 12-month battery life and they are water and dust resistant to IP67 standards. They’ll be available for purchase on January 25, 2017, in a range of different packages at www.getpixie.com. $99.99 will get you a package of four Pixie Points, and it can be purchased along with a Pixie Point housing iPhone case ($49.99, and it includes two Pixie Points).
Sounds interesting, right?
