Review: XY FindIt – New way to find stuff with your phone

Review: XY FindIt – New way to find stuff with your phone

Review: XY FindIt – New way to find stuff with your phone

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Its a known fact that people lose things. I cant count the amount of times I have lost keys and wallet, but now I don’t have to worry about this anymore. XY Findit have released the solution, and have very nicely sent me a couple to try out. XY is a secure Bluetooth LE Tracking Tag that assists you in finding nearby items just by attaching them to your valuables, your possessions and your pets and activating it on your phone. It’s the best option if you’re the kind of person to lose things around the house or the office.

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The setup is extremely easy, you just download the app, pop open the XY, remove the battery protector, then open the app to sync it. You can assign it a name and a picture, this addition makes it easier when using multiple devices to track multiple objects. The tag itself has had a lot of design go into it. Not only is it waterproof, it also feels very durable and has been dropped a couple of times. It also has a very premium “feel” to it, its not plasticky and cheap.

The tags come in a variety of colours and are extremely easy to get onto a key ring. They also came supplied with a metal tether, to allow you to attach the XY to something without a suitable attachment.

The XY Bluetooth Tag comes with three modes that you can switch between using the companion app:

  • Find-It:
    • This is the perfect mode for finding where you left your keys. It will support 150 foot range and tell you how close the selected beacon is. The only downside is big concrete walls, so dont go losing your keys in a bomb shelter. It will also guide you to where those misplaced items are. So, never waste time searching for your keys again.
  • Keep-It:
    • For everything you would like to ensure is always by your side, activate Keep-It mode. As soon as you activate it, you will get alert on your phone when you move out of range of the tag. In this mode, you will never leave something significant behind again, so some people may want to attach these to children.
  • Lost-It:
    • By activating lost it mode, you can mark any tag as lost directly from your application. Once you activate it, it will alert other users if they find the item, or it can just tell you where the item was just spotted.

This Lost-It function is a really good idea. In the future when these are all out and about, the XY community will be helping other to find their lost items, which is quite an amazing idea. The companion app listens to discover close Bluetooth LE signals. After discovering new tag, it checks with a server to notice what information about that tag is available to you. If you are not allowed to see any information, it would not show on your list.

People had mentioned battery issues when using the app, but on my M8 I didn’t notice anything significant. Obviously the service was active, but nothing that I wouldn’t of expected from this kind of app.

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At the time of writing XY has an Android community of over 230 members, and they have been a big help to the development of the product. They seem to really like the XY beacon itself, commenting on the look and feel.  The style and design of the app has received positive feedback

A pack of 3 will set you back around £55. These aren’t the kind of cheaper tags, which fall apart after a month, or break at the first site of water, or a wooden floor. These are a premium product, and the app matches that feel. It is available in seven different colors including black, gray, white, green, purple, pink and sky blue.

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Owner of a rooted One and Nexus 7. Mostly write reviews of apps and any hardware I can get my hands on. I frequent Google+ and XDA-Developers.

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