Despite not showing off any new phones at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, Nokia did have one cool new thing to show off - the Nokia Locate Sensor, one of many Research Center projects the company has publicly demo’d lately. This little…thing…is about the size of your thumb and contains a battery and a wireless transmitter of some sort. It communicates with an application that runs on your phone (what looks like a modified N95 was demonstrated at CES) and can track up to 100 different Locate Sensors (hopefully they’ll be cheap).
The Nokia Locate Sensor application will then alert you if the small sensor is moved away from you – with a range of up to 100 meters, apparently user-configurable to shorter distances. The device works both directions – you could attach it to your laptop, for instance, to be alerted if someone snags it, or put on your keyring, to prevent you from walking out without your keys. You could also keep the Nokia Locate Sensor in your pocket, so that if your phone gets out of a certain range, it begins emitting sounds.
According to ElectricPig, who had a chance to play with the Nokia Locate Sensor at CES, you could also use the Nokia Locate Sensor to disable your cell phone if it went out of range of the sensor, and re-enable it when you got back in range. This would help prevent theft, somewhat.
Of course, there’s a myriad of potential use-cases for this technology, such as keeping track of children, pets, etc. The Nokia Locate Sensor’s internal battery can reportedly last for 18 months of usage, which is quite impressive, given its small size. There’s no word on whether or not this will ever make it out of the Nokia Research Center, though, at least in its current form. Nokia has repeatedly shown off cool technologies that it is working on in its labs, without that technology being quite ready for prime time.
What do you think? Can you think of other scenarios where this sort of gadget might be useful?
