It displays the location of the tracker on a map, and it is integrated with Apple Maps on iOS to get directions back to your bag. You can geofence areas, so if the tracker moves outside a certain area marked on the map, you get an alert (and when it returns). The whole process should take less than 10 minutes, provided you have decent data coverage. Once that is active you can set up the tracker through the MoveTrack app. But you can use a prepay sim for that, topping it up occasionally. You need to activate the V-sim inside it first, currently something that needs a Vodafone sim right now because it charges the monthly fee to the number. The Alcatel tracker device itself is easy to set up. Or at least in areas where Vodafone’s V-sim plans work. It costs €2.99 per month to get the data plan activated, which means for about the price of one coffee (in a Dublin-based chain, let’s not get too carried away here) you can track your bag across the world.
V-bag by Vodafone is intended to keep track of your bags – laptop bag, handbag, luggage, whatever – using a combination of a small Alcatel Move Tracker, a holder that attaches to your bag and a Vodafone V Sim, which is intended for use in IoT devices. But that lurching feeling of dread is one that I could do without, quite frankly.Ī solution may have presented itself. Not permanently, unless you count the time I lost my passport on a plane while en route to Portugal (10 years on and the trauma of that episode still runs deep), and usually it’s less a case of me losing things and more of me deciding to put them in a really safe place for a while and forgetting. So good for short-range stuff, not so good for longer range.īut confession time: I lose stuff.
Go outside Bluetooth range – 30ft or so – and you are depending on a network of other Chipolo users to find your item for you. I own several Chipolos because finding my car keys and wallet (and various other items) is one of the biggest time hogs every time I try to leave the house.