Have you ever wandered around in a parking lot trying to find your car because you forgot where you parked it? I know I’ve done that on more than one occasion and each time I feel like a complete moron looking up and down the aisles trying to find my car. Fynder’s are keychain transceiver fobs that can detect a beacon module located in your vehicle. Just point the Fynder around the parking lot and it will beep faster and faster as you hone in on your vehicle’s location. It’s an expensive gadget at $99.95, but it might make a great gift for the absent minded parker in your family.
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What a cool gadget! I wonder if a parent could use this to find a child in a crowd?
@Cyrano Sure. Just strap the beacon to their head 🙂
If you have sat nav or better still a smartphone with mapping, just add it as a waypoint……costs you nothing.
@jc or do like I do, walk around and click your lock button on your keyfob. Mine will make the car horn beep if I click it twice. And at night you can see the lights blink.
is this designed for the “jitterbug” crowd? ca$h grab!
I’m with Julie on the beeping car horn.
Since I don’t own a car, I rent from Zip Cars. They have an iPhone application that allows me to beep the car horn without the key button.
The same application will lock and unlock the car.
Zip Cars are not locked with the ordinary key. They use the member’s electronic card or this iPhone app.
@Sandee There should be an app to remotely start the car and have it drive to your location 😉
@Julie Agree with what you said…we need the James Bond car app for the iphone…lol
I have an I phone and I also have a Bushnell Backtrack for when I go fishing in Bridgeport, Ca. along the streams all day and want to find my way back to camp. With my I phone I always have to remember to mark my location when I park. Believe me, if you are willing to take the time to mark your way point every time you park your car you are probably not a person who loses there car anyways. Oh, my I phone and my backtrack do not work in parking garages and that is where most people lose there cars. I got one of these Auto-Finders and tried it out for a while in a few different locations and found that it takes some learning to get used to. Once I learned how to use it properly I was pretty amazed with its ability to guide me to my car from a long way away. I went to Horton Plaza in San Diego where all the levels are listed as vegetables like red pepper and stuff and I went up to level 5 when my car was on level 2 and it pointed me downwards. I really love it because I can always carry it with me in the little belt clip and people always ask about it (fun), I never have to program the location of my car, it doesnt need open sky to get a GPS signal, I dont have to wait for it to load and lets face it people activating your car alarm only works when you are like 100 feet from your car and it is absolutely obnoxious. I think this is a great product to buy and I am already using it for other things like creating a family emergency plan with my daughter. I got the extra pointer remote for her and linked it to my car beacon and since she loves to find the car I have made a plan that if we ever get separated at the mall she can meet me at the car.
How does this work in multi-level parking lots? You could be one level above or below your car and this device thinks it found your car.
Maybe that is when you click your lock button.
The biggest problem I see in dense urban areas (read: multistory carparks) would be multipath errors… where in theory, you could get a totally false reading in the OPPOSITE direction.
I’m going to assume this COULD be superior to the car horn honk/chirp alarm idea… but… I know my car key fob’s range isn’t THAT great. It’s OK but not magical.
One concern I see is that the locator gizmo here is a little big for us guys who don’t carry purses. I usually dangle my keys on the edge of my pocket, and I hate carrying more than I need to. Maybe I should carry a purse. Or a manly gadget bag.
I do like the Bushnell GPS thing as well. Way cool.
As for strapping the 2nd half of the locator on a wandering kid? Results will probably vary since a kid is a moving target. For best results, the “car” unit ought to be stationary to avoid multipath errors. I would LOVE to put it to the test, though! Dust off my old DF skills (direction finding)!
I predict that this feature will be added to all PNDs (personal
navigation devices) in the future. The PND will tell you which way to go to get back to your car.
Higher end Garmins already have a feature that saves the
location where the PND is removed from its cradle.
Future devices will have a homing beacon which will supplement
the saved location in cases where satellite reception is poor,
as in a multilevel garage.