U Grok It Finds Your Misplaced Items Using RFID Tags

UPDATED March 19, 2014, with information about further development of U Grok It.

Have you ever been late to an appointment, class or work thanks to a few misplaced items? Unless you're a meticulously organized individual, we're sure at some point you've misplaced a wallet, key or phone and ended up spending much more time than you would have wanted searching for it. Thanks to the U Grok It, you can pretty much say goodbye to all of your misplacing woes.

The simple device consists of a receiver unit and a number of RFID tags that attach to your frequently misplaced items. The receiver then plugs into the headphone jack of your smartphone and uses the Grok It app to locate your items. The U Grok It has a range of approximately six to ten feet and beeps louder and faster as you get closer to the missing object you are searching for.

As great as the U Grok It is, anybody who frequently misplaces their items likely misplaces their phone as well. Of course you could just give your phone a call, but that only works if your phone isn't already dead or on silent. Either way, the U Grok It is still a pretty neat device and reasonably priced at around $100, with each additional RFID tag priced at $1. The company plans to start off with 1,000 test units and continue with a full-scale production run sometime in 2013. For more information and to sign up to be notified when pre-orders begin, head on over to the company page here.

UPDATE: The U Grok It company contacted us to say that it has refocused its target market to business clients and will be shipping to customers in mid-2014. The Discover Grok smartphone app is available in the iTunes App Store and Google Play for use with demonstration units. More information is available at www.ugrokit.com.

Tuan Mai

Tuan Mai is a Los Angeles-based writer and marketing professional focused mainly on PC gaming and hardware. He held the role of Social Media Editor across Tom's Guide and its sister publications for more than six years, helping the sites grow their audiences and also contributing dones of articles, with a special interest in the weird and quirky.