(See bottom for tl;dr.)
I’m the kind of person who loses their keys easily, so I love the idea of trackers: little devices that you can attach to your wallet, phone, or keyring that connect via bluetooth to an app on your phone to help you find it.
Problem is pretty much all the options I can find are run by companies with shitty privacy policies: Tile, Apple AirTag, Chipolo, and so forth.
- Tile collects shitloads of data and is partnered with Amazon to boot;
- Apple Airtags AFAIK only work with Apple devices, and besides it’s Apple so no thank you; and
- Chipolo also collects shitloads of data and shares information with data brokers and data collection companies of all stripes. No thank you.
In any case, I really don’t need a location network larger than maybe 200 meters (about 650 feet). If I lose my keys, odds are it’s either in my car or in my house, and my house is like 100 square meters (about 1000 square feet). So Bluetooth is really all I need. I don’t even need to see it on a map; I just need for it to ding or something.
I’m currently using Tile but I really want to get away from it. Worst case scenario, I’ll stop using the Tile, but I really am a forgetful little shit. Lol.
tl;dr – Looking for recommendations for ideally short-range Bluetooth trackers for keys with decent privacy. Max required range = 200 m (650 ft). Also, pie tastes great. Cheers.
So… I’m going to be that person, yes, you already where it’s going : how about no tech? How about a box, wooden, plastic, whatever, where you put the keys inside? Always.
I know it doesn’t sound fancy, and as somebody who is turning the light on and off above his head with a keyboard shortcut I genuinely understand the challenge, but… in terms of privacy it is hard to beat.
Now… assuming you have HomeAssistant (as I do) and still really want to still do that and are ready to setup an “infrastructure” (to be able to do the zoning) this https://www.linuxmo.com/how-to-create-a-bluetooth-tracker-with-home-assistant-and-esphome/ looks like a proper solution that does work and is fine in terms of privacy. It does look like a lot of work to be honest, and it would only work in your house (or office if it’s yours so you can do the zoning there too) rather than going through the network of mobile devices that Apple and Android do… but it would be a start.
Looks like you don’t care for zoning… then I imagine whatever beacon paired solely with your phone would do.
Very good point about the low-tech method.
As for the Home Assistance route, honestly, I’ve never really gotten into the whole “Internet of Things” thing.
Honestly… it’s not worth it. It’s fun, sometimes convenient, but nobody truly needs it except in some very specific situations. That being said it’s also now relatively easy and cheap to setup, e.g RPi4 then add a Zigbee dongle (30e) with a Zigbee lightbulb (20e) or switch (15e) or sensor (e.g temperature for 15e), install HomeAssistant in an hour … and voila, you have a setup you can play with and move from any home to any other in minutes. So it’s not a “big” deal to start but again, what for. I personally do it because I love tinkering and want to feel that I can be at the “state of the art” of technology WITHOUT surveillance capitalism, so it’s more an intellectual and more pursuit rather than a pragmatic approach. So I don’t recommend it but I also had to clarify it’s not that complex or expensive anymore.
I appreciate the explanation. It definitely does seem 50x easier than it seemed 6 or so years ago when I last looked into it.
Out of curiosity, what does the “e” stand for in regards to the dongle, lightbulb, switch, and sensor as mentioned above?
“e” stands for the Euro currency, thought EUR was a bit much and was too lazy to look for €. Apology for the confusion.