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Show HN: Hone for iPhone 4S - never lose your keys again (kck.st)

29 points by litwack ↗ HN
Hone is a Bluetooth low energy device for the iPhone 4S and new iPad that erases the annoyance of losing your keys - my partner (Louis Gerbarg) and I built it for ourselves, and then decided to put it on Kickstarter. It lasts for 6+ months on a CR2032 battery, has a 50 meter range, and we're making the whole thing in the USA - case, PCB, and component assembly. We've gotten lots of help and support from HN users (esp. Eric Migicovsky's Solid State Hardware talk, curtgeen's hardware design guide) and we'd love feedback now that we're launching.

29 comments

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litwack
My description got eaten - anyway, Hone is a Bluetooth 4.0 low energy device for the iPhone 4S and new iPad that helps you find your keys when they're lost. 6+ month battery life on a single CR2032, 50 meter range, weighs 0.6oz. HN posts inspired me and my partner (Louis Gerbarg) to do this, especially Eric Migicovsky's Solid State Startups video and curtgeen's guide for the design of physical products. We'd love your feedback!
coob
Awesome, I've just backed it.

One question: What happens when there are multiple devices around?

lgg
The app will support multiple devices when we ship.
timerickson
What do I do when I can't find my iPhone?

Snark aside, this looks great. The beauty is that it's not necessarily for your keys, its for anything you lose often, if you can figure out a way to attached this to said object.

litwack
Tim: that's our #1 FAQ entry! You can definitely use Hone for anything, we just wanted to focus on keys because it's the clearest use case.
lukifer
That would significantly increase its value: a button on the unit to cause the phone to buzz, so that one can always be used to find the other.
philfreo
Use Apple's "Find iPhone" app from your computer or a friend's phone
dmvaldman
how does this differ from phone halo? http://www.phonehalo.com/products-2/
coob
It appears to work with iOS and low power bluetooth 4.0.
litwack
Exactly right. The Cobra Tag uses traditional Bluetooth, so it has to be recharged every couple of days; we use Bluetooth low energy and a removable battery that lasts 6+ months. They don't support iPhone and we (currently) don't support Android.
daeken
I'd love to have this but it being iOS-only kills it for me. Any thoughts on opening up the spec? I'd love to implement this for both my laptop (Linux) and my Boot2Gecko phones.
litwack
It uses a custom UUID for advertising, but other than that it uses standard Bluetooth LE profiles for notification and battery status, so you should be able to do it...
saurik
These are both things you should see from PhoneHalo in the incredibly near future, AFAIK; sufficiently that I would not bother waiting for this other new product to maybe happen.
mikeash
I'm trying to figure out how they're similar!

Your link describes a product that sounds an alarm if the widget gets too far separated from your phone, ensuring that you don't leave it behind somewhere. This widget lasts about a week on a battery charge and requires a monitoring app to always run on your phone (thus it can't work with iOS).

The Hone only alarms on demand (it will find your keys, but won't automatically alarm when you leave your keys), does not require an always-on monitoring app, and will last about half a year on a single battery.

cgherb
Actually that is not true. Cobra Tag works with iOS: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/06/15/phone-halo-shows-off-the-cobr...

  We also were the first to show the 4.0 technology last January at CES:  http://ces.cnet.com/8301-33369_1-57354528/bluetooth-4.0-powered-cobra-tag-g5-needs-only-biannual-recharges/
lgg
None of their shipping products work with iOS, but you are correct that they demoed a product 6 months ago.
drivebyacct2
Seems like you could pick up another large pool of users for almost no cost, the on-the-phone software can't be hard and new Android devices have BT4 support.
lgg
We would love to support Android, but two issues are currently preventing us from doing that:

1) A low percentage of currently shipping devices support Bluetooth low energy. We expect this to change in the future, but it's hard to explain to consumers which models will and won't work. We think we would probably get a lot of users buying are device for incompatible handsets, which would result in a lot of returns and unhappy users.

2) BLE isn't supported in the base Android distribution. In order to support it you need to use different BLE stacks depending on the device vendor, which would be a huge potential ongoing maintenance and QA burden.

Having said that, we're hopeful Google will add support for BLE with a standard API in a future release, and at that time we will seriously evaluate supporting it.

martinshen
I love how they used the celebrity sister. Why didn't he explain that further in the video or something?
eridius
Explain what? The video is about the product, not about the sister.
xutopia
I find it funny how much emphasis creators are putting on how things are developed in the USA. If someone puts that up as a feature of their product all I hear is "We have issues in our product but you'll put up with them because we are playing the demagogic card."
litwack
We set up our supply chain in the US because it sped up our development and saved us from customs issues and the like, not for jingoistic reasons; we don't have an issue with global manufacturing. I assure you, we will stand behind our product!
downandout
I thought I recognized his sister (featured in the video). Turns out she is Kat Dennings, a relatively successful actress. - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0993507/ . Anyway, nice project...most of the key locator products currently on the market are junk.
tumblen
Are there any iPhone/Android + Doorknob solutions out there? I don't want keys at all! I would love to replace my doorknob and just have my phone transmit a key to unlock the door as I approach.

One problem could be if the phone ran out of battery. Perhaps a small usb charger near the door for emergencies?

Man I would love that.

candre717
I knew I recognized his sister. She starred in 'Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.' Awesome, awesome movie.
huhtenberg
I still have a key-chain thingy that beeps back when you whistle. No Bluetooth and no proximity sensor, but it runs on the same battery I put in in early 90s :)
kelsokennedy
This is a great idea! I'd love to see how much slimmer they can make the fob though. Between my car key and my apartment fob, it's almost impossible to lose my keys because they take up so much room!