It’s so easy to get caught up in the rat race these days. It seems like every time you turn around, there’s another assignment that needs doing, another meeting to attend, or another person to talk to. In our busy lives, it can be refreshing to have the minor tasks just take care of themselves. With that in mind, we have found these useful gadgets to help you stay organized and safe, even on the craziest of days.
Tile
We all lose things. It’s part of our humanity: we forget our wallet in our car, or leave our keys inside our favorite jeans. Tile is a little gadget that can be attached to an object, and it will help you find where you left those important things. Your Tile app finds where your item was last via a Bluetooth dongle and tells you where to find it now in their free to download app for smartphones. If your item is hiding in your room somewhere – under your bed or behind your desk – you can make the Tile play a sound to pinpoint its exact location.
Just make sure you keep close tabs on your phone, or else you won’t be able to activate the tracking feature! To help solve this problem, if you have a Tile in hand but can’t find your phone, simply press the “e” on the Tile and it will make your phone ring. Not only can you track your Tile via your phone’s Bluetooth, if an emergency ever arises you can set your Tile to “lost” mode in the app, and it will ping off of the Tile apps of other users nearby your object to help you find it, even if it’s outside of your Bluetooth radius. You can also “share” your Tile with other users, allowing anyone from your mom, partner, or best friend to also be able to access your Tile, if you’re really concerned about losing your things.
Tile is a very useful device that can save you hours of searching for those pesky car keys. The standard-sized Tile, Tile Mate, is available to purchase in a four-pack for $70, or in singles for $25 each. The recently released, credit-card-sized, Tile Slim – intended for wallets, laptops, and other items with thinner profiles – is available for purchase in a four-pack for $100, or singles for $30 each. Other combo packs and many accessories, intended to help you get the most functionality from your Tiles, are available from the Tile Store.* If you’re constantly misplacing things, if you’ve ever been late to work trying to find your keys, or if you are concerned about theft, the Tile is a relatively cheap gadget for the peace of mind it can give you.
ROBOCOPP Personal SOS Sound Alarm
One of the few truly-effective methods of self-defense not widely used today are sound alarms. The ROBOCOPP Sound Grenade is useful as an animal repellent, rescue signal, and self-defense tool. To activate the device, simply pull the ‘pin’ on the end of the jump drive-sized gadget to blast a 120 dB alarm. This is approximately the same volume level of a rock concert, a thunderclap, or the sound a jet airplane creates when it takes off at around 200 feet. You can stop the noise by putting the pin back in, or allow it run until help finds you. The Sound Grenades are able to provide up to 30 continuous minutes of alarm, and have a one-year warranty on stand-by, although ROBOCOPP states that they can generally remain in stand-by mode up to five years, due to the lithium battery type.
There are three models: the $15.99 Sound Grenade, a smaller model that can produce a 120dB alarm, meant for city use; the $19.99 Sound Grenade+, meant for more rugged, outdoor exercise and capable of producing a 130dB alarm; and the $69.99 ROBORanger, coming with the alarm function and the added feature of contacting 911.* Each has different functions, so choose the one that will perform best in the environment you will be using it in. There are a large range of color options, combo packs, and other products available from the ROBOCOPP Store. If something ever does happen, ROBOCOPP will replace your device 100% for free!
Whether you’re scaling a mountain, walking home alone in the dark, taking a hike in a large park, or buying something off of Craigslist, situations occur every day that could be aided by the added security of ROBOCOPP. These gadgets are TSA approved, and waterproof, working even if entirely submerged under water, so there’s nowhere you can’t take your ROBOCOPP!
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was edited May 15, 2017 by Camille Reaves to add a large amount of additional information about the above products and to remove the product Plastc. Plastc claimed to file Chapter 7 Bankruptcy on April 20, 2017, and have been unable to fulfill any pre-orders. Many backers have been entirely unable to get their money back, and the product bears many of the warning signs of a scam. If you have experienced this issue, you may have a few options available to you. The Peak would like to take this moment to remind its readers that, when funding Kickstarters and other high-liability products, it is best to pay with a credit card. The ability to dispute transactions and potentially get your money back in cases like this is the #1 benefit of credit cards not offered by debit cards.
*Prices vary by country. Listed prices here are only for the US store. Shipping costs not included.