Last week my colleagues and I took delivery of a set of Stick-N-Find stickers for use in our research project.

Stick-N-Find stickers can be attached to items that have the annoying habit of going AWOL. Once attached, the errant item can be tracked through a mobile device. (Very little of my stuff is worth tracking with a $20 sticker, but I can see the day when the ubiquity of these solutions drives prices down to the level where tracking my tat is economical.)

The promotional blurb claims  a range of about 100 feet, which we found was about right – provided there was a clear line of sight. Missing items can be “pinged”, however, the audible alarm given off by the sticker is kind of weedy and easily muffled. I think you’d practically have to be on top of the missing item before you’d hear the alarm.

Great fun was had tracking the stickers up and down the corridors of the Computer Lab at Cambridge. More on how we are planning to use Stick-N-Find in our work soon.