Locca Wants To Stop You Losing Stuff - Or Your Kids - With Its SIM-Packing GPS Trackers

TechCrunch » Gadgets

Locca Wants To Stop You Losing Stuff - Or Your Kids - With Its SIM-Packing GPS Trackers

You wait ages for a lost-item tracker hardware startup, and then loads and loads pile on at once. There have been a spate of such startups cropping up on crowdfunding sites in recent times — notably Tile, which raised $2.6 million via Selfstarter back in July, although it won’t be shipping product until next year. Others hoping to attack the space with similar Bluetooth-powered tags include the likes of Button TrackR, Lapa and Protag (with its next-gen Elite offering), to name just a few. And now Locca has just kicked off a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo for a pair of item trackers, the Locca Phone and Locca Mini (pictured above left), that incorporate a range of tracking tech to offer longer distance real-time item tracking.

The latest low-powered flavour of Bluetooth, colloquially known as Bluetooth Low Energy or BLE, is undoubtedly encouraging more startups to try their hand at item tracking. But Bluetooth has its drawbacks for an item-tracking use case — notably it has a pretty limited range of around 30 meters.

Tile is hoping to get around that by leveraging a community of uses to create a distributed network effect, so that the proximity of your lost Tile to another passing Tile user can be used to cast its item-finding net wider. But that’s only really going to happen if its product takes off in a big way. In the meantime, all these Bluetooth trackers can only really offer a limited use-case scenario of finding stuff you’ve lost in your own house, say, or sounding an alarm when you stray a few meters away from your bag.

That’s why Locca reckons there’s room for another player in this space — one that can track items over much greater distances. Unlike its Bluetooth tag-touting rivals, it’s sticking a SIM card inside its trackers so it can draw on a range of location pinpointing technologies, including GPS, to boost tracking range and enable live tracking of lost items even across international borders (its service will initially cover the U.S., Canada and Europe and expand to more countries in 2014).

“Locca locators have integrated five of the best locating technologies: AGPS, GSM cell-triangulation, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth low-energy and FSK. Therefore the positioning is very accurate and fast, and tracking is possible worldwide, e.g. your lost luggage with a Locca is in Madrid, and you can see where it is from London,” the startup tells TechCrunch.

Items are viewed on a corresponding Locca app that displays the real-time position of tracked items on a map, and offers additional functionality such as setting up different zones where you might want the system to behave differently toward tracked items.

However there’s a cost to Locca’s more comprehensive coverage: Locca plans to charge buyers a monthly service fee for the data they’re using. Both Locca’s forthcoming devices — the smaller, lower-cost Locca Mini and the full-fat Locca Phone (which can also be used to make and receive calls) — come with a built-in SIM. The monthly cost of keeping each tracker active is €9,90 ($13,50) per month for the Locca Mini; and €14,90 ($20,30) per month for Locca Phone.

Battery life is another cost of this type of tracking option. Locca says it’s developed its own energy-saving algorithms to help improve this but while the larger and more expensive Locca Phone will have a guaranteed ‘more than one month’ longevity, the smaller Locca Mini looks to require a lot more juicing. Locca says the Mini’s battery is good for “7 days active time”, perhaps longer depending on your usage.

“Depending on which technology is used the battery lifetime is shorter or longer. E.g. a Locca is fixed on your dog. At home the device is connected to FSK, when the dog enters the garden GSM is turned on and when the dog runs away you could even switch on in addition the APGS to see the exact position,” it says.

An item tracker with a flat battery is no longer an item tracker — which does give the Bluetooth tracker startups an edge in some respects: for instance, Tile boasts a year-long battery life. In fact, Tile owners will never have to charge the device — instead, they get an email reminder towards the end of the battery’s life to send Tile back and purchase a replacement (costing $25). That yearly fee for Tile is still cheaper than a year of Locca’s service (albeit, you can start and stop the Locca service whenever you like within the app, with no contracts required).

There are other GPS trackers on the market, but Locca claims its Mini device is “the smallest with so many locating systems.” It’s also relatively lightweight (23g) — affixing it to your dog’s collar is one use case they envisage. Other use cases could include fixing it to car keys, putting it in your handbag or tagging your bike.

The larger Locca Phone tracker, which can also make and take calls, thanks to a built-in microphone and speaker, is being marketed as something to give to an elderly relative or your kids. (Locca co-founder, Albert Fellner, is also founder and owner of Austrian mobile maker Emporia, which makes mobile phones for older people — likely explaining this portion of Locca’s focus.)

Calls can be put through to the Locca Phone via Locca’s app, giving parents an alternative channel to speak to their kids or check in on elderly relatives. Another use for the Locca Phone is as an in-car safety device, as it will incorporate crash sensors and can be set to automatically make a phone call in the event of an accident.

Locca is offering Indiegogo backers a variety of options to bag its hardware. The Locca Mini can be picked up from €99, with six months of service included in that price. And the Locca Phone from €149, also with six months of service. It’s also offering a range of accessories, such as cases to fix the trackers to your pet’s collar or a bike kit to mount it on your bike.

The startup is focusing on getting the Mini delivered first, with an estimated ship date of December, while the Locca Phone is slated for February next year. Locca said it has been bootstrapping the project up to now — and is hoping to raise €75,000 via Indiegogo – although it has also previously taken in an angel investment of €150,000.

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Split Lives Up To Its Name, Creates Cheap Earbud Headphones With Absolutely No Cords

TechCrunch » Gadgets

Split Lives Up To Its Name, Creates Cheap Earbud Headphones With Absolutely No Cords

Even wireless earbuds have wires, let’s be honest – they have to, in order to link one earbud to the other. It’s been an impossible barrier to cross in headphone design, with some exceptions that generally cost a whole lot of cash. Enter the Split, a new Kickstarter project that wants to untether one earbud from the other forever.

The Split isn’t bulky like previous designs, and it doesn’t require any fancy transmitters. Each unit is a contained piece of gadgetry, with its own battery built-in, and they’re only just slightly larger than standard earbuds, with bits that stick out slightly from either ear. They each have their own memory chip and processor, too, and they sync playback between one ear and the other (something founder Marco Scandurra says isn’t likely to fall out of sync, barring physical damage to the devices).

The biggest problem with these earphones is that they work independent of any devices, however. That means they only play locally stored music, uploaded to the Split buds themselves –which currently tops out at a max of 256MB – and can’t connect to your iPhone or Android device via Bluetooth or any other protocol.

While there’s not currently any workaround in sight to bring Bluetooth connectivity to the Split, there is a plan to make it usable with mobile devices in the early stages of development.

“There are plans for next year to make an app that is compatible with iOS and Android phones,” Scandurra explained. “With that app you will be able to manage and upload songs onto Split, and we are also planning on developing an adapter that can support Lighting connectors on iPhone and iPad devices, while the regular USB port will just need to be converted to mini USB to work with Android devices.”

Memory on the device is limited, and a means of loading it with songs which requires frequent shuttling of content back and forth isn’t going to work for most people. Scandurra says they’re working with their supplier to double space on the device to half a gig by next year, so that’s something at least. And if you’re an athlete looking for a completely tangle-free solution, you’re probably going to be decently happy with enough content to run a simple playlist or two.

Now of course, if you’re like me you’re terrified at this point about what the Split is doing in terms of radiating your brain. But the headset uses around 1,000 times less radiation than a Bluetooth headset, according to Split. And how do you control a music player that’s only an inch deep and resides inside your ears? With bites, of course. Each one has an accelerometer within to detect jaw motion for play/pause, volume control and track skipping.

Honestly, this is an extremely niche product that’s at least a little crazy looking. But Scandurra has a PhD in high-energy physics from the University of Leipzig in Germany, and held a post-doc position at MIT in the Physic Department so if he’s crazy, he’s also at least got the creds to make these real. The team behind Split is looking at December as a ship date, and backers can pre-order for only $29, which means you don’t have to be soft in the head to get on board. This is definitely an early version of experimental tech, but it could also be the ground floor for something big.

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Goldee Does Dynamic Lighting For Philips Hue, Banks On A Future Where Light Isn't Static

TechCrunch » Gadgets

Goldee Does Dynamic Lighting For Philips Hue, Banks On A Future Where Light Isn't Static

A brand new app called Goldee launches today, offering Phlips Hue users a new way to use their connected lighting system. The app provides dynamic “light scenes” which use artist-sourced photos as their palette, changing tones gradually to provide dynamic shifts in color, including gradual on/off sequences for waking up in the morning or going to sleep at night.

There are 10 different scenes included in the app at launch, each which a brief description and credits (citing the scene’s creator, the photographer of the source image and the location where it was taken). Tapping on any starts the dynamic lighting, with each bulb attached to your Philips Hue system taking part. You can specific if you have multiple rooms in a single home with Hue bulbs, too, and run a different scene for each. The first light scene also has an alarm feature, and the last one has a sleep timer for going to bed.

The app works well, but there are some caveats – you have to have the app running in the foreground to get the dynamic effect to work, and the screensaver built-in to keep your display from using too much juice is a little finicky when it comes to returning your display to full brightness once you activate the screen again. But on the whole, it’s a unique experience, and one that Hue owners are likely to appreciate.

“The Goldee team started innovating home lighting even before Philips hue was introduced,” Goldee CEO Tomas Baran explained in an interview. “We figured out right away that Philips hue is a very good tool to build upon [with lighting]. However, the Goldee App is only our first step towards changing how we perceive and interact with light.”

Baran says that there are plans in place to do “something much bigger,” which he expects to reveal more about later this year. He calls light “a new form of art,” hence sourcing its scenes from people with experience in that field, and notes that light is never static in nature. I asked whether this might be a bit narrow in terms of focus for a whole company, but Baran says Goldee is betting we’re just seeing the beginning of change in this space.

“Every new thing is risky in the beginning, but if we wait until it becomes popular it will already be too late,” he said. “We believe a revolution has started in the lighting sector with smart LEDs. We have no doubt this will be the future. We used to watch black-and-white TVs, nowadays we cannot imagine a display without colors. Obviously, it will take time, but we see the same thing happening with light. “

The app is free, and so far the only content that’s locked within the app can be made available via either rating the app or sharing via Twitter and Facebook. There is a “library” section that promises to add additional light scenes in future, and some of those may arrive as paid upgrades. For now, Goldee is a well-executed curiosity, but it’ll be interesting to see if smart lights really do herald the kinds of changes Baran envisions.

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Android Ecosystem Finally Putting A Dent In The iPad's Universe, Says ABI Research

TechCrunch » Gadgets

Android Ecosystem Finally Putting A Dent In The iPad's Universe, Says ABI Research

Apple is expected to refresh its iPad line-up next month, likely adding a Retina display to the iPad mini, and perhaps pushing the iPhone 5s’ Touch ID fingerprint sensor-fuelled home button into a new flagship iPad. But even as Cupertino upgrades the iPad’s capabilities, its dominance in the tablet category is coming to an end — as the sheer size of the Android ecosystem inexorably dents the iPad’s universe.

Analyst ABI Research has flagged up what it describes as a “shift in leadership” in the tablet space, with Apple’s iPad family passing the baton to Android in three areas. Firstly in shipments: ABI notes that Android-powered tablets surpassed iOS-based slates during Q2 for the first time. Secondly, it says tablet-related hardware revenues in Android and iOS reached parity at the mid-point of the year; and third it notes that the average selling price (ASP) of the iPad is “rapidly approaching the market average.”

Apple reported its first yearly decline in iPad sales in its Q3 results back in July, with 14.6 million iPads sold in the quarter (vs 17 million in the year-ago quarter). Apple of course competes with multiple Android OEMs — which in the tablet space includes Amazon with its Kindle Fire range; Samsung with its Galaxy Note line up; and Google’s Nexus slates. So it’s fair to say that Android-powered tablets passing iPad shipments at some point was all but inevitable, with multiple companies attacking the iPad maker.

Amazon and Google especially have used price as the differentiator to move more tablet-shaped boxes by undercutting the iPad’s premium pricing. That it’s taken the Android ecosystem more than three years to be shipping more slates than Apple is a measure of how relatively poor Android tablets have been vs the iPad experience (it’s no coincidence that Google felt it needed to get involved directly with the tablet space with its own-branded Nexus slate to help bring up standards and push down prices).

Overall, ABI says tablet shipments grew more than a fifth (23 percent) year-over-year in Q2, while the market declined 17 percent sequentially.

On the revenues front, overall, ABI estimates that tablet shipments in Q2 generated revenues of $12.7 billion — with the iPad accounting for (only) 50 percent of worldwide end-user revenues. That’s notable because it’s the first time Apple’s slate has not dominated market revenues. Albeit, it still means Apple split the market in the quarter – taking the largest share for itself, while all other branded vendors shared $6.3 billion among themselves.

A shift to smaller slates

A dip in iPad sales and the lower-cost iPad mini go some way to explaining reduced revenues for Apple in the tablet space. But with multiple Android OEMs targeting the 7-inch small slate space before Apple did, there was a clear need for Cupertino to introduce a smaller iPad, whatever the costs on the revenue cannibalisation front. (Cannibalising itself is not, in any case, something Apple shies away from.)

ABI’s data reinforces the importance of the small slate category, noting that circa 7-inch tablets finally became the category majority in Q2. Apple’s own small slate also dominated overall iPad shipments — and accounted for nearly half of iPad revenues. “The 7.9-inch iPad mini represented about 60% of total iPad shipments and 49% of iPad-related device revenues in the quarter,” notes ABI senior practice director Jeff Orr in a statement.

The iPad mini, which launched just under a year ago and costs $329 vs $499 for the Retina iPad (or $399 for the iPad 2), is the main cause of a 17 percent drop in the ASP of the iPad over the past year. “The iPad drop is primarily attributed to the introduction and volume shift to the smaller iPad mini,” ABI notes.

Yet, while the ASP of the iPad has been falling — as buyers shift their cash to Apple’s smaller, lower cost slate — the ASP of the rest of tablet market has increased 17 percent over the same period. ABI attributes that to competition heating up and iPad rivals being able to match and even best the capabilities of Apple’s hardware. “Twelve months is a long time for the peak lifecycle of a contemporary tablet. To remain a leader, Apple must continue to innovate and address real-world market needs,” adds Orr.

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This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: Steam News Breaks While We Record, Surface Sequels And Adobe Gets Mighty

TechCrunch » Gadgets

This Week On The TC Gadgets Podcast: Steam News Breaks While We Record, Surface Sequels And Adobe Gets Mighty

A rare treat this week as you can hear the TechCrunch team react to breaking gadget news (the Steam Controller, to be specific) live as it unfolds. It’s like being inside our brains without the echoes and cobwebs. We also cover the big Surface 2 reveal, Steam OS, the Steam Box announcements, Adobe’s Mighty hardware and BlackBerry’s very bad quarter.

This week, we have a very special episode of the Gadgets Podcast with a ragtag team of lovable characters, including myself – Darrell Etherington – Chris Velazco and special guests Frederic Lardinois and TCTV Producer Steve Long, so you just know it’s going to be the heartwarming comeback story of a lifetime.

We invite you to enjoy our weekly podcasts every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern and noon Pacific. And feel free to check out the TechCrunch Gadgets Flipboard magazine right here, as well as the TechCrunch Droidcast.

Click here to download an MP3 of this show.

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Intro Music by Rick Barr.

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