Chip Chick
Usually, lost and found trackers are pretty straightforward — you put a tracker on your keychain, you lose your keys, and you use your phone to make the tracker ring out. Pixie likes to have a little more fun. Since the beginning of this year, they’ve been using augmented reality to help find lost items using an iOS app. Well, it just so happens that Apple got even more interested in augmented reality this year, unveiling their new ARKit as part of the upcoming iOS 11 update. Pixie is wasting no time in taking advantage of the new tech.
Before the new Pixie update, you would see a bunch of virtual pixie dust floating in your home when using the augmented reality feature — that pixie dust would collect around your lost item as you got closer to it, with the tracker on the item giving you helpful beeps along the way. Once iOS 11 drops, the Pixie app will show you a little 3D avatar of your lost item hovering over its location along with the pixie dust. Lose your keys, and you’ll see a little cartoon set of keys guiding you to the real thing when you look around using augmented reality on your iPhone.
Will it really help you find your stuff faster? To be honest, the pixie dust and the beeping probably did the job well enough. But, after checking out the updated app, we think it’s a lot more fun this way!
As before, each Pixie tracker must be attached in some way to an item you’re concerned you might lose. Pixie works a little differently than most trackers in that you need to place a tracker on your phone, too — Pixie does ship a special case with a Pixie-sized hole in the back with their tracker sets, but that does make it harder to use other smartphone cases when you feel like changing things up. The trackers come with adhesive you can use to stick them on the back of other cases, but you might not be a fan of that if you love your stylin’ designer cases as much as we do.
The batteries in the trackers last about a year, and the trackers are rated IP67 for water and dust resistance, just in case you lose something in a pool. Hey, you never know!
Pixie plans to sell new packs, all with iPhone case included, starting in September at $40 and up. Fortunately, if you’ve already got Pixie trackers, you don’t need to buy any new ones (unless the batteries are dead) — all existing Pixie trackers will work with the new AR features, which will arrive in an update alongside iOS 11 in September.
Check out more of our IFA 2017 coverage right here!
