By Andrew Liszewski
We’ve written about Bluetooth-based personal alarm systems designed to stop you from leaving your smartphone behind, but the Ty system is designed to work the other way. The thin, poker-chip sized discs attach to your personal accessories like briefcases, laptops, jackets and even family members, while a downloadable app on your smartphone will let you know when you’ve become separated from them.
They have a decent range of about 50 feet, though in the Ty app you can specify different ranges for up to 7 different discs at once. So for example you may always prefer to keep your wallet no farther than an arm’s length away, but you don’t want the alarm going off when you’ve gone to the bathroom at a restaurant and left your coat on the back of your chair. The app is also GPS location aware allowing you to setup safe zones, so no alarms will sound when you’re at home or at the office and things get separated. The discs will be available in March of this year for ~$70 each, with accessories like clips selling for between $5 to $30. The only downside, it won’t work with the iPhone because third-party apps apparently can’t constantly run in the background as needed for this to work.