I’ve just been skiing and here’s a problem and a solution I fleshed out with my buddy Conor (who was on the same holiday). So, your heading off to the slopes, which are typically an inconvenient distance from your hotel. You arrive at the top of the the first ski lift and discover you have forgotten your googles/lip balm/sun cream/gloves/hat/ski pass/ski poles/wallet/backpack/etc/etc. Any one of which will entail a laborious return to your hotel. Add two kids to the mix and you are guaranteed to be bungee cording too and fro from your hotel every morning.
So a quick technology fix, add an RFID tag to everything you need and get your phone to give you green or red light when you leave the hotel. Better still, it calls you and says “You left something behind”, then you check the console to see what item is missing. This continues to work throughout the day as you stop off in gondolas, cafes, bars, creches, whatever. So you never leave anything behind again.
I’d pay for it.
Copacetic 
I like this idea. I’m forever forgetting stuff. Just as long you don’t leave your phone behind your fine.
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You’ll Pay, all right!
When you see the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) on that one, you’ll give special consideration to a note.
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I always thought this was what a Bluetooth PAN would do. There is a little RF device which comes with half a dozen tags which you attach to “things” or “small people” and it allows you to track them over a limited range. I’ve considered it for the little people.
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Hi MJ,
Yes, that sounds like it might do the job.
Ken,
Of course I’d pay over the odds for it, I’m a geek, thats my raison d’etre. Never allow cost to be the deciding factor in an over complicated and hard to deploy solution 🙂
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Three words – sad, sad, sad
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You forgot your googles?
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Besides Zigbee there has been very little on-the-ground happenings regd PANs. They have the potential (like Bluetooth and upcoming ‘without wires’) 2b very useful.
Driving down the cost factor and getting a ubiqitious standard (to enable the volume downpush) hasn’t happened yet and u have all those guys pushing their own std.
U can get ‘stick-on’ tracking devices but they are limited 2 homebase. The ‘can bring it anywhere’ versions are still not cost effective yet — but they’ll get there. By that time u’ll be looking 4 your zimmer-frame and not googles!
Lal
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