Track your valuables

Avoid separation anxiety

One of the things that is annoying when Rving is not being able to remember where you put things. Finding the remote at home can be done in under 5 minutes, but finding your keys in an Rv can take half a day or more.

When we are on the road there is always a little voice running in the background saying “ No don’t put that there, put it where it belongs. See my post on setting up a storage system) This has made Rv living much easier. However, there are times when I am not aware that I am leaving an item behind, or the items falls out of my pocket into the abyss. For that problem there are these small devices you can attach to just about anything. They boast that you will be able to find your item quickly and avoid the stress of backtracking your life for the last 24 hours or longer.

After some research, I found that the most popular device was the Tile. They have been around the longest and have the most users, which gives you a better chance at making a long distance recovery. There are a bunch of others like Mynt, Trackr and at least 10 more. I purchased the Mynt because it could double as a remote for my phone and it had replaceable battery.

How does a bluetooth tracker work?

Most of the ads for these devices seem to intentionally mislead you into thinking that the device has some kind of gps system onboard and a way of sending you the location of your missing item. That is not how these work. Once you get your tracking device you may need to install the battery. And pair the device with your smartphone via bluetooth. Then you will be able to cause your tracker to make a loud noise if the tracker is in range of your phone. (Tile’s website says maximum is between 30 and 100 ft) You will also be able to use the device to ring your misplaced phone. Another cool feature that most of these devices have is being able to mark the location of your item when you were separated from it. So if you have a tracker in your car and can’t find it in the mall parking lot, you can look on the app and see the location when your phone and device got separated. Some of these devices can alert you when the separation occurs so that you can immediately return to get your item.

But what if someone steals and relocates my item?

This is where Tile (link) has an advantage by having the most users. Tile is able to use crowdsourcing to locate your item. You mark your Tile as missing and if it comes within 30 feet of another Tile user it will mark and send you the location of you missing Tile. This can take days sometimes, or if you live in a sparse area, it may never happen.

The Mynt is a very nice light weight aluminum tag that measures about an inch and a half long and ¾ inch wide and as thick as two larger coins.

Tips

1. Do not try to yank out the plastic tab that keeps the battery from being active without first opening the battery compartment. Find the tiny switch on the side that locks and unlocks the battery compartment, move it to unlock and swing the battery out. This will make removing the plastic tab possible.
2. Connecting it to my iphone took about 20 minutes. First I downloaded the Mynt App 5 minutes. Then I proceeded to do a firmware upgrade which went smoothly and took another 5 minutes. I hit a snag connecting to bluetooth as the instructions failed to mention that once you see a yellow oblong circle on your screen you need to tap it. Not so apparently this icon is your Mynt tracker.
3. Once connected and while the device was within a foot of my phone, I was able to use the remote to play music, change the volume and ring my phone. I was also able to use the phone to ring the Mynt. The sound was loud enough to be heard in the next room easily.
4. That evening, my Mynt was about 30 feet from me and I started getting a notice saying. “Did you forget your keys?” After the fifth time I checked the app and saw that the Mynt was losing contact with the phone and it was alerting me. After a returning the Mynt, the notices stopped.
5. The Mynt does not work when the app is not running in the background. It will not alert you when you are separated from your keys. Or mark the location of your item on the map. This is a major problem. I was however, able to ring my phone with Mynt with the app running and the phone off.
6. My phone battery died later in the day and I did not restart the Mynt app. The next morning I left the Mynt at home and headed to work. I did not receive an alert that I was leaving it behind. When I got to work, I checked the Mynt app map to see the last location of the Mynt it was not there. When I checked the list for the Mynt it said it was disconnected. At this point I had an option to report it missing. Since I know where it is I will not test this out at this point.

If this would have been at actual lost keys situation, I would have not been able to recover them on my own.

Mynt Tracker Performance Updates

I checked my Mynt this morning and when I pressed the button there was no blink of the red light. I only had the Mynt for one day, but I did do a firmware upgrade as soon as I got it. It turns out that the firmware upgrade killed the battery. This is the reason the Mynt let me down the day before.

After replacing the battery, the Mynt paired up and all looked good. I headed out to work and left the Mynt at home. I left the Mynt app running in the background and the phone off. In approximately one tenth of a mile my phone alerted me with a question “Did you leave your keys?” Not bad. Another 5 minutes went by and I received another alert. I checked the app and could see the location of the Mynt at home.

On the way home from work I checked the app again and could see that the last known location of the Mynt was near my house and that I could activate either Google maps or Apple Maps and get turn by turn directions to the Mynt.

I followed the directions but when I got to the destination, the map showed that the Mynt was about 100 feet on the opposite side of the road in the woods. If this would have been an unknown location I would have to cover about 5 acres to find the Mynt. After turning into the driveway, the Mynt connected and the exact location was updated.

Ill give it another go tomorrow.