These Tiny Stickers Want To Connect Your Belongings To The Internet

These Tiny Stickers Want To Connect Your Belongings To The Internet

Raise your hand if you’re a little bit sick of hearing about the Internet of Things and how it’s going to change everybody’s lives, like, tomorrow. It’s been a slow and frustrating process to watch so many products make big promises and so few live up to them. Estimote’s latest promise, however, has me intrigued.

They’re simply called Stickers. These bite-sized beacons come with an adhesive backing so you can slap them on whatever you want. They’re not only equipped with Bluetooth LE so they can talk to your smartphone or tablet — Estimote Stickers also come with accelerometers and temperature sensors to broaden their capabilities. In effect, the tiny wireless sensors do everything that Estimote’s full-sized Beacons do (and more). They just come in a smaller, more convenient package.

But what can they do? We’ll see! Estimote suggests simple projects like attaching a Sticker to your dog’s collar so that you know where the little guy is hanging out. You could attach one to your bike so that you can track your rides. You can even keep it super simple and build a basic app that tells you when you’ve left your purse or phone somewhere. The possibilities are supposedly endless.

That said, Estimote Stickers aren’t quite on the market yet. The company is accepting pre-orders now and expects to ship packs of 10 stickers for $US100 this fall. The products is tailored towards developers and works with the existing Estimote SDK. It seems like a code-savvy gadget enthusiast could probably have a lot of fun with them as well.

Regardless of how Stickers work when they do actually exist, there’s definitely interest in the technology. Companies like Cisco, IDEO, and the Guggenheim Museum have all signed up as partners. It all sounds very cool — except maybe the name of this category of gadgets that Estimote is pushing. They’re calling them Nearables which — I don’t know — sounds like a medical device or something. “Stickers” is much more fun. [TechCrunch]


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