“A good option to secure not only your wallet” – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Alexander Levi talks about gadgets for tracking your things.

Before the advent of Apple AirTags, the tracker market was a vibrant and varied space. Many specialized vendors and their models were heard: Tile, Chipolo, Pebblebee and others. With the advent of the Apple solution, the consumer focus has narrowed. For a while, it even seemed like two new genres were emerging in news feeds: how someone was illegally spied on using an AirTag; and more encouraging – how the mark helped to find missing or stolen things.

There are noticeably more recent scenarios in the public space. This reassures users, and even to some extent influences their choice when selecting a tag specifically for protection against theft. At the same time, AirTag has several features. Firstly, recognition. The attacker will try to get rid of the tag as soon as he sees it. And the shape of a small washer, with the fastening or storage of which you have to come up with something. Some vendors have turned this to their advantage.

KeySmart has released its SmartCard tracker in the form of a plastic card, which works with the same proprietary Apple Find My application as AirTag. That is, tracking of your belongings can be carried out in the same environment, and for outsiders the tag will be unremarkable. SmartCard perfectly disguises itself as ordinary plastic cards or electronic badges, which can be found in, perhaps, any office. The gadget even has a characteristic oval cutout for holders.

The new product can sound a beep. It also sends a notification to the owner in the application as soon as the algorithms calculate a suspicious deletion from the user. What’s important is that such a thin tracker can be recharged. Thanks to the developers, they did not use a proprietary connector, but installed wireless charging of the common Qi standard. By the way, KeySmart engineers promise five months of battery life.

A good option to secure not only a wallet, but also, for example, a car or a bicycle, anything where it is fashionable to hide a plastic card. Let me add that SmartCard is protected from water to almost the highest standard IPX7. KeySmart asks $40 for its tracker.