In their busy lives people forget things all the time, and forgetting things is the No.1 cause of loss. Wouldn’t it be great if your things make sure you don’t forget them?
Finding things back when you’ve lost them isn’t good enough; if you’ve locked yourself out it doesn’t matter that you know your key’s are on the couch. This constant responsibility stresses us out in our daily lives. That’s why we live by the motto:
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” – Benjamin Franklin
We don’t just help you find things, we actively make sure you don’t forget. By attaching trakkies to your things, they become smart and connect to each other. They work together as a team, so you don’t just rely on your phone for everything.
Nodes are tiny microcomputers that make your objects smart. So smart, that they can warn you when you are about to leave something behind. They can even watch themselves and give an alarm when they’re touched and you are not around. You can connect anything, from keys, wallets, bags, laptops, whatever you want.
The best thing? You can even get a notification when you leave your phone behind, because every node has a display and a speaker.
trakkies come in 2 varieties. trakkies.micro is designed for extended range (up to 180m) and battery life. trakkies.tagg is designed to be small and affordable enough to fit anywhere, and put on anything.
We built the system to always watch your things, but we’ve added some features to make your day even smarter.
Profiles
Unlike any other IoT device, trakkies are run by profiles. Every object is different, and so you expect them to show different behavior. Your keys and wallet are essentials wherever you go, while your gym bag is for a specific activity (and day) only. The nodes know exactly what they are and what that means, making everything truly smart. Profiles capture information like:
– Am I an object or a place (or both)?
– How essential am I on what day and time?
– What does it mean when I’m moving?
– What other things are normally around me?
– How warm am I allowed to be?
This allows us to make really smart decisions and save a lot of energy doing it.
Worry-free-morning-routine
Your morning has never been easier. Your system learns what you normally bring, or you can tell the app what you must never forget. While you collect your things, the system wakes up, and makes sure you bring everything with you. You can also set an alarm, so all your things are easily findable (with sound and light) right before you need to go.
One-click-go
We really like to check if we have everything all the time, just to be sure. (Did you know the average person does this more than 40 times a day?) By pressing the button your node shows whether you have everything, even when it’s buried deep in your bag. The display shows how many things you have with you, and whether things are missing. This way, you are always in control of getting the information you want, when you want it.
Programmable button
The button on a trakkie is programmable, and can be set to have three functions. Use it as a remote control for your phone: Skip your music, take a selfie, turn on BLE Lights or set any function by integrating with IFTTT.
Set up is a breeze:
Mesh network
Normal BLE devices only connect to your smartphone. Our nodes connect to each other as well, which allows accurate location triangulation. Better still, our nodes can amplify each others signal, which means that the range can extend indefinitely.
Range
By using state-of-the-art* Bluetooth antennas our range is far higher (up to 70m) than normal bluetooth devices (30m). When really needed, we can use extra power to boost the range. The trakkies.micro also connects with Radio Frequency, boosting the range to 180m in line of sight.
*Jabil is supplying us with the worlds first pattern bluetooth antenna. Right now we’re not allowed to tell you more, because it’s still a secret!
Battery Life
We are very serious about battery life, and use our profiles to get the most out of it. By capturing useful data such as location and movement, we allow nodes to go to sleep when they can. If you’re at home, your keys can go to sleep. They are woken up as soon as they move, or your other things are making a network, signalling you’re about to move.
Cloud Based Intelligence
Your life is insanely complicated, and helping you make decisions requires computing power. By spreading this computing power over the nodes, your phone, and the cloud, we are able to do complicated things. We have spent 3 years researching exactly how to do this, and writing the algorithms allowing this intelligence. We’ve come a long way from ‘If This then That’.
In our design nothing has been spared. Too often we find that IoT nodes look utilitarian, toy-like and have no respect for the aesthetics of your everyday life, or lack the quality and style appropriate for everyday use. Our nodes were designed from the start to not only look great, but feel great in your hands too. From the the rounded shape of the shell to the exact haptic feel of clicking the button; everything detail has been thought of.
The distinct flattened hour-glass shape not only feels great in the hand, but allows us to attach a score of accessories easily and securely. The keyring hole at the top of the product not only allows easy attachment, but aligns every node perfectly in its accessory for that clean, elegant look.
We have come a long way, and the release of the Nordic N52 chip has allowed us to go public in confidence. This chip makes it possible to do all the things our nodes need to do at the same time. The official release also allows us to finalise our shell design and interface design.
The production availability of the N52 is still half a year away. We’d really like to use that time to engage with you, so we can tweak the product to your preferences.
We believe in bringing the IoT to the people, and we want the future in your hands as soon as possible. We need your help to get the hardware production going, and to accelerate our coding team. In that time, we’d love to hear from you what you really want, so we can adjust the details.
Our hardware allows you to do way more than just not forget your things. We’d love to hear from you what YOU would like to do in the future. Here are some of the things already on our roadmap (and included in the first release):
200K: Awesome Accessories
When you guys bring us to the 200k mark, we’ll continue our work on the accessories. These will include a flexible wristband, a quick detach wall mount and a fashionable clip to expand the ways you attach your trakkies.
trakkies spent 3 years as a research company at the European Space Agency BIC working on the data science behind the system, perfecting methods of identification, digital language, digital context description, machine learning and ambient intelligence.
In 2014 it became clear that no-one was building the right kind of hardware to support our system, and our focus shifted to building the absolute right kind of hardware.
In 2015 trakkies was selected as one of 11 teams (out of 300) to join Startupbootcamp. Startupbootcamp is one of the largest business accelerator programs in the world, with an extremely high success rate. In the program we increased our product/market fit and acquired a huge network of expert mentors and advisors (from some very successful companies, like a certain navigation electronics company).
During the program our team grew from 6 to 13 people, increasing our manpower and expertise to build the product absolutely right. Let’s introduce ourselves: