In the end Samsung overtakes Apple in the race of smart tag or smart tags . Some devices that work as GPS beacons to locate everyday objects. From the house keys, to your pet, or the backpack or purse with important documents. All this so that, even if you lose these objects, you can find them with your mobile. We have already known the Samsung Galaxy SmartTag, and here we tell you its current possibilities and the most interesting, which is still to come.
According to a Samsung study, e l 40% of the people surveyed lose an object each week. And 70% of those objects have been the keys in 2020. It is hard to believe taking into account the pandemic and the lack of parties and others, but if you are one of those who lives worried about this fact, now there is a very useful system to avoid it. Of course, take into account several requirements: the first is that you must get a Galaxy SmartTag from Samsung for a price of 40 euros . The second thing is to have a Samsung Galaxy mobile, better if it is the Galaxy S21 Ultra with UWB technology (although this will be used in the SmartTag + that is yet to come). And the third thing is to link everything so that the tag is always active and locatable.
SmartThing makes the Internet proprietary to find everything
The key to the SmartTag is not only Bluetooth connectivity LE that uses to connect to your mobile, but the entire network that Samsung has created around its platform SmartThing . Without your knowing or noticing, your Samsung Galaxy receives and passes information on signs of SmartTags and other devices you come across. A kind of latent social network that helps to locate objects.
Thanks to this technology, if your backpack with the Galaxy SmartTag ends up in an airport on the other side of the world and a user passes by with his Samsung Galaxy, this information will end up reaching your mobile. You will not know the contact of that user nor that person will know that it is near your backpack. But the network will have transmitted the signal of your SmartTag through the SmartThing app to your mobile to know the last location.
For this, the Galaxy SmartTag , when it spends more than 30 minutes unlinked from your mobile, it begins to send signals through Bluetooth LE, which can reach up to 120 meters in the ideal conditions . These signals are collected and displayed in the app SmartThings so that at least you have the detail of the last known location. Even if you are not connected to the Internet this label. It already has its own network.
How to find your objects
Just use the application SmartThings to be able to locate the objects linked to your mobile. In this case the SmartTag that is inside your backpack, around the neck of your pet or on the keychain of your keys, for example. Thanks to Bluetooth LE technology your mobile works like a minesweeper, being able to see on the screen the last location on the map and, the most curious thing: a visual system to know if you are approaching or moving away of this smart tag and what is attached .
Thus, if you are already within the BLE range, you can see how the bar fills up if you are getting closer. And, when you’re close enough, you can ring it to find it if it’s hidden from the naked eye. By the way, you can program the sound of these smart tags and even differentiate it if you have several of them. Of course, only a user or mobile can have access to them.
By the way, this Galaxy SmartTag also works the other way around, to find your mobile . You can press its button to ring your terminal and find it. It is even designed to program this button with the rest of the connected devices in your home on the platform SmartThing . If you have lights, a smart TV and even radiators connected, you can press the button on the label in a certain way to activate a scenario that you have predisposed, for example, to meet it like this when you get home.
But it’s sure?
Samsung ensures that the location system and sending information of the Galaxy SmartTag is safe for users. Or that nobody will be able to know where you are, where you have your things or spy on you. For this the Galaxy SmartTag changes your ID every 15 minutes , so it is really complex track or follow the location and details of the same device. In addition, although it will come later, you can encrypt the information that is sent between the Galaxy SmartTag and your mobile. An option that is not yet available in the current system but that will end up landing soon to offer an extra layer of security to communications.
Of course, its design is not completely waterproof. It does withstand splashes thanks to the IP52 certification , but it is not suitable to be submerged. Enough to carry as a keychain or tied to a backpack.
Regarding its autonomy, according to Samsung, it offers 300 days of useful life with a button battery that can be manually entered inside. Of course, the autonomy data can be followed through the application SmartThings from your Samsung Galaxy mobile.
The best is yet to come
The biggest problem of the Galaxy SmartTag is that, when overtaking Apple, it has left several things in the pipeline. But Samsung is already working to add functionalities to this system . Among them are the option to activate a notification alarm when you move away from the SmartTag with your mobile. As with the S Pen on the Samsung Galaxy Note, so you don’t forget this add-on or don’t stray too far.
You will also land on the SmartThings app a Google Maps style location history . With this you will be able to know the last shared locations from the SmartTag and calculate where it was possible lose the object or simply review those places you have been throughout the day. But there is still no date for when this tool will arrive.
However, the most remarkable thing is the new version of SmartTag that will land in the future. Samsung calls it Galaxy SmartTag + , and, in addition to having a slightly larger size, it also has UWB technology or ultra-wide band . It is a radio technology that is much more accurate than Bluetooth. Thanks to it, not only will we be able to know if the signal on the label is strong or weak to know if we are going to its place or not, but it will also allow us to specify the direction and distance from us.
With all this technology, and when the Galaxy SmartTag + arrives, Samsung will update the app SmartThings to see a augmented reality map with all these data . In this way we will know if we have to turn, change direction or how far we have to advance to find the device and what we have turned on in it.
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