(Guide) The Best Trackers to Help You Find Your Keys, Dog, or Kid

[Karlston]

The Best Trackers to Help You Find Your Keys, Dog, or Kid

These are the best Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, and cellular clips to ensure you never lose anything ever again. 

“Systems!” My friends and Marie Kondo's internet shout. “All you need is a system. As long as you always put your things down in the same place, you’ll never lose anything again,” they say, as I stagger in the door carrying children’s backpacks, a bag of dirty laundry, my fanny pack, and dog food.

 

Like Elizabeth Bishop, I have developed losing into a fine art. I hid my Kindle from the 2-year-old, and now I can’t find it. My husband borrowed my wallet to grab the car insurance card; while I was looking for that, the dog got out of the yard. You may feel ambivalent about stalking your friends or loved ones (please resist the urge to sew a tracker into your shady boyfriend's coat), but without Bluetooth and GPS trackers, I would barely be able to function. I’ve listed my preferred uses for each of my favorite trackers, but many of these are multipurpose—if you can stick it on a dog, you can also stick it on a kid, and vice versa.

 

For more ideas, check out our roundups on kids travel gear and our many other buying guides, such as the Best Strollers.

 

Best for Kids

Jiobit Location Monitoring Clip

 

The Jiobit uses a combination of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, and GPS data to keep track of your small one wherever they may go. It remains my favorite tracker for small children, and I’ve also heard of caretakers using a Jiobit with dementia patients. In 2019, Jiobit released a firmware update that lets you use it to track your pets.

 

Jiobit also has rigorous security protocols, like including a dedicated chip to access the Jiobit servers and burning away part of the circuit board, so you can’t steal it and physically reprogram it. It’s small, waterproof, and comes with a multitude of options for attaching it to your child. I threaded the tester through the zipper pull on my kid's rain jacket.

 

Best for Dogs

Fi Collar

 

I’ve tested several dog trackers on my patient pups, but the Fi is my favorite, if only for the battery life. While other trackers need to be recharged every week or so, the Fi only needs to be charged every three months. I received it last October and have had to recharge it only once.

 

You don’t need to fiddle around with attaching or reattaching it to a collar when you charge it, since it comes with its own collar, and the unit is IP68-rated and waterproof. It also uses a combo of Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular connectivity to keep 24/7 tabs on your dog. Use the app to designate a safe zone around your house and alert you if your dog wanders off the property. It also includes a dog activity tracker and a collar light for walks at night.

 

Best for Hiking

LynQ People Finder Two-Pack

 

The dread creeps over you slowly, as you wait at the bottom of a ski run or a trail crossing. Where is your friend? Are they lost? Dead? The only way they could be slower than this is if they were dead!!! The LynQ is a rugged, rechargeable, one-button carabiner that uses GPS to keep tabs on your friends anywhere in the world. You don't need a phone, service subscription, cell service, or Bluetooth.

 

You can add up to 12 LynQs to a group, set a home location at your car or tent, or set up a group boundary by scrolling and clicking through the device’s menu. I clipped the carabiner to my dog’s harness while hiking and watched the pointer swing back and forth as it kept tabs on her for me. It also has an onboard digital compass, if you need even more help getting oriented.

 

Best for Remotes

Tile Sticker Two-Pack

 

In the past few years, Tile has made its ubiquitous Bluetooth thing-finders even more useful by making them more durable and waterproof. It also introduced replaceable batteries. Last year, it released the Tile sticker, which means you can now Tile many things you couldn’t Tile before.

 

The stickers are useful for items that wander. I have one on the tiny remote for my Apple TV and the back of my Kindle Paperwhite. Each sticker is waterproof, has a three-year battery life, and offers a 150-foot range, which is more than big enough for my small house and pretty impressive for a tool that’s so small. None of the stickers have fallen off in the six months I've used them. Having a tiny bump on the top of the remote is a small price to pay for being able to find it when I need to put on Paw Patrol ASAP.

 

Also Good for Keys

Chipolo One

 

I'm a Tile devotee—I have them on my key ring and in my wallet too. But my colleague Julian Chokkattu also likes the Chipolo One. It costs the same as a Tile but comes in a variety of attractive colors.

 

As Julian notes, setup is simple. When you ring for your Chipolo, it's loud so that it's easy to find. If you mark an item as being lost in the app, another Chipolo user can help find it for you—if they walk past it, they'll update its location in your app. Like the Tile, you can choose to get alerts if you leave the house without your keys. As with many Bluetooth trackers, the connection can get wonky, but it's usually able to find an accurate last location.

 

Best for People

Your Phone

 

As many of my colleagues have noted, the best people-tracker is the device that many of us keep nearby at all times. It's also the one I use the most often. Google Maps, Life360, and Apple's Find My are just three popular ways for people to share their location with close contacts.

 

I use Apple's Find My all the time, whether to reassure my kids their dad will be home soon or to meet up with family members while traveling. Apple's Find My is the safest, as both Google Maps and Life360 require you to store location history. However, location sharing can be turned against you. You can also restrict the length of time that you share with a contact, or turn off location sharing in the app itself.

 

 

Source: The Best Trackers to Help You Find Your Keys, Dog, or Kid (Wired)