Losing personal items like your wallet, house keys, or even your luggage can be quite stressful. This is where having a Bluetooth item tracker comes in handy. These devices enable you to quickly locate lost items with just a tap by connecting to your smartphone, with some models even featuring separation alerts, notifying you if you leave an item behind. While Bluetooth item trackers offer you a reliable way to keep track of your belongings, some brands are now focusing on integrating personal safety features to their Bluetooth trackers. Enter Pebblebee, who recently announced Alert, a new, free, built-in personal safety feature that’s being added to its Pebblebee Universal Clip Bluetooth Tracker, which is compatible with both Google’s Find My Device network and Apple’s Find My network.
PebleeBee’s new, free-to-use, Alert safety feature turns the company’s Universal Clip Bluetooth tracker into a lifeline with just a few rapid presses. Pressing a button on the tracker a few times activates a flashing strobe light and a piercing siren, which alerts anyone nearby that you’re in trouble, while also triggering the app to send a notification to an emergency contact from your Safety Circle (configured via the app).
The tracker’s Alert functionality can also be cancelled by rapidly pressing the button again or by pressing it and holding it for a few seconds. When canceled, your Safety Circle contact will receive a second notification informing them that the tracker’s Alert function was deliberately stopped.
Unlike the tracker’s Loud Melody function, which emits a loud buzzer sound to help find the item you connected the tracker to, the 97-decibel siren from its Alert function has a louder and more urgent tone to it. This makes it instantly obvious to anyone around you that there’s a problem and that you’re potentially at risk of harm, for which the tracker’s strobe light and siren will keep working for up to a minute.
There’s also a Left Behind notification function, which emits a sound alert when it’s out of its Bluetooth range.
Through the Pebblebee app, you can set up a “Safety Circle” consisting of one trusted contact, who will receive an SMS message right after the Alert feature has been activated. This emergency message includes a secure link to the location where the tracker’s Alert function was triggered, which can be viewed in a browser, meaning your emergency contact doesn’t need to have the Pebblebee app installed on their phone.
To ensure users know how to use the tracker’s new Alert feature so that they can reliably activate it during a real emergency situation, the Pebblebee app also includes a test mode that lets you practice activating the tracker’s Alert function without alerting the emergency contact from your Safety Circle.
In addition to Pebblebee’s free version of its new Alert safety feature — which is included in every Pebleebee Universal Clip at no extra cost — there’s also Alert Live, a paid subscription service (costs $2.99 p/ month or $24.99 p/ year), which offers real-time live location sharing with your emergency contact(s) until your safe, plus an expanded Safety Circle, enabling users to notify up to five emergency contacts instead of just one.
It’s also worth noting that both Alert and Alert Live will now support Silent Mode for discreet situations.
The Pebblebee Universal Clip Bluetooth Tracker packs a water-resistant construction, boasts Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity up to 500 ft., and is powered by a rechargeable battery that offers up to 1 year battery.
The tracker is priced at just $34.99 and is can be ordered online directly from Pebblebee’s online store.
