CAO Gadgets

A new generation of wireless smart tags, "Wireless Sensor Tags" are available to purchase today from Shopify. Orders will be shipped within 1~2 business day. Compared with 1st generation which are now discontinued, we have made them much more useful for you:

• The USB Tag Manager is replaced with a standalone "Ethernet Tag Manager." Plug it into wall and to your Internet modem, and the system will be available 24/7 to access from the Internet, or by using iPhone/iPad/Android apps, without the need of a PC at all. 
• A new radio and antenna design increased wireless range by 2~3x (to ~200ft/60m in free space). 
• Lots of new features such as temperature monitoring, logging, complete smart phone/tablet Integration: instant notification by Apple Push or Google C2DM (like SMS but without messaging charge), Twitter, spoken tag name, associating image to each tag, message customization, arm/disarm scheduling, door statistics, and more. 
• Each wireless tag now conserves more energy to make the battery last a lot longer.
• All new free iPhone & iPad apps are available in AppStore.
• All new free Android app is available in Google Play. (supports Android version 2.2 or higher)
• The web interface is also greatly expanded to allow full access to all available features.

Wireless Smart Tags allow monitoring from your PC/Smartphones open/closed status of each gate/window/door (and garage door) in your home. You can configure each Tag to beep, make your PC beep, or send yourself email notifications, when the door was just opened or has been open for too long. Attach/detach each tag to door/window by strapping elastic band, require no tools, and is done in 30 seconds.

You can also attach Wireless Smart Tags to valuable or easy to lose items in your house and locate them through beeping sound by using your PC or Smartphones. You can configure the system to send you email notifications when each attached item has been touched or moved from their original locations.

The Tag Manager may be configured to connect to www.mytaglist.com to allow monitoring/beeping of the tags from any device anywhere with Internet access.

Access anywhere on www.mytaglist.com designed for smartphones. Watch Demo.

The Tag Manager USB stick contains the Wireless Tag Manager Windows application along with all of your tag information to allow starting the application from any PC without software installation - Getting started in <1min.

Features At a Glance: Locate keys/pets/TV remotes/wallets through loud beeping sound (+90dBA) Control & monitor maximum 255 Wireless Tags per each Tag Manager USB stick from your PC, Mac, Smartphones or iPads 100 ft (30m) range with default settings, programmble to trade-off with battery life and response delay Receive E-mail notifications when Tag has been touched/moved Door/window mode allows attaching tag to door or garage door to monitor closed/open status Adjustable frequency in 430-439MHz band to avoid interference 9 month battery life with default settings, can be extended up to several years trading off response delay or range FCC Part 15b/c Certified Limited 2-year warranty

Locate through beeps and monitor hundreds of Tags using the Wireless Tag Manager Windows application. Watch Four Types of Beeping Options.

Arm / Disarm / Beep any tag and monitor status on your tag list from your iPhone, iPads or other Smartphones. Watch Using iPhone to Monitor Door Open/Closed Status. .

Attach to garage door for monitoring if anyone forgot to close it from the bedroom, your car or in your office. Watch Video Demo.

Find Anything You Need Instantly

Wireless Smart Tag system allows you to locate items you need instantly through beeping sound. No problem when you do not have time or enough space to keep everything perfectly organized. Just like your garage. Strap the Wireless Smart Tag to each important items and never have to turn every stone in your garage to find them.

Tamper Detection with Motion Sensor Smart Tag

The Motion Sensor Smart Tag has a 3D digital compass (magnetic sensor) that can precisely measure the orientation of the tag with respect to the magnetic field of the Earth, with resolution down to 1 degree. By recording this field vector at user specified interval, any slight orientation change resulted from the tag being touched/moved can be detected, while consuming very little power. For example, by reading the field every 30 seconds or longer, it can last years from a single coin cell battery. Watch Motion Sensor Smart Tag Sensitivity Test. Possible usage include:

Monitor If Your Garage Door is Open or Closed From Anywhere

When configured in "Door/window monitor mode", the Motion Sensor Smart Tags can be attached to garage doors or front doors to allow monitoring from Tag Manager or www.mytaglist.com if the door is open or closed. Watch Demos: garage door (how to attach) or regular door. This is accomplished behind the scene by calculating the 3D degree difference of the present orientation vector with the orientation vector when the Tag was last armed. When this degree difference is larger than a configurable amount (such as 45 degree) the garage door is deemed opened, when the difference returns to within that amount, it is deemed closed.

Receive Email Notification when a Smart Tag is Missing

By setting "Auto Update Interval" from the Tag Manager, each Smart Tag is configured to transmit a status information back to the Tag Manager at a certain interval. Upon receiving such status information, Tag Manager transmits an acknowledgement response back to each Smart Tag. When the Smart Tag does not receive the acknowledgement, it repeats the status information transmission for up to 30 times before giving up. Therefore, even when because of temporary radio interference a single transmission is not successful, very reliably the Tag Manager can detect if a Smart Tag has gone out of range or gone missing. The Tag Manager can be configured to automatically take various types of actions, including sending you an email, when this happens for each Smart Tag.

Keep Track of Your Inventory

Conventional warehouse relies on barcodes to keep track of inventory. It is a labor intensive process to locate and scan each item when they are moved in or out of the warehouse. By taking advantage of Wireless Smart Tag System, the operator can keep track of the inventory from a Windows PC located inside the warehouse or using a smart phone / tablet PC with Internet access.

User-Friendly Design

Each Smart Tag exterior is made of FDA approved, non-toxic advanced super-elastic material (made in USA). This allows users to stretch the opening to take out the internal circuit board for battery change, without using any pliers or screw drivers.

The Wireless Tag Manager can be used in Windows 98 or newer (that includes 98, 2000, Me, 2003, XP, Vista, and 7). The program runs directly from the Tag Manager USB stick (which will be recognized as a USB memory stick) and does not require any software or driver installation. The program can be configured to automatically open upon plugging the USB, and auto-close upon unplugging the USB. The application automatically zooms to use larger icon / text when the number of tag is small to utilize empty screen area.

TV Remotes.	Keys.	Less than 2 inch wide, 6 credit cards thick.
Easily Attach Smart Tag to Personal Items.

Front doors.	Zoomed.	Bedroom Doors.	Other Doors.
Unlike other door alarms, Wireless Smart Tag can be attached very unobtrusively. Using elastic ear on the tag, no glue or tool is necessary to securely attach/detach.

Construction of the Wireless Smart Tag

Each Wireless Smart Tag contains a wireless transceiver, a microcontroller (brain), a piezo buzzer to emit sound, a coin cell battery, and optionally a digital compass for motion sensor tags. The entire surface of the tag is made of non-slippery stretchy elastomer (made in USA) which can be stretched up to 7 times of the original length before breaking. The "ear" of the tag to be strapped to various objects without glue or other tools, so no glue stain will be left on the surface of strapped items. By using included Velcro band each tag can be strapped to larger objects.

Customize Trade-Off Among Battery Life, Response Delay and Range

The wireless standard used by the Smart Tag to communicate with Tag Manager can be custmized to improve one performance metric chosen from "battery life", "response delay", or "wireless range" while sacrificing the other metrics that are less important to the particular application of the user. This allows the user to tap the full potential of the underlying wireless technology while remain fully compliant with FCC rules. The operating frequency can be precisely chosen between 430MHz to 439MHz at 200kHz interval to resolve possible interference problems with other equipment in some environment.

What's in the Box

Wireless Tag Manager USB Stick (contains Tag Manager application and 1MB of storage for tag list data); Two Motion Sensor Smart Tags; Two Basic Beeper Tags; Four CR2032 coin cell batteries; Four Velcro tape for strapping large objects; and user's guide [PDF].

One of the beauty of software is the great flexibility and rich feature it can bring, without adding to product cost. A "Door Mode" has now been added to the Wireless Tag Manager software to allow users to use the Motion Sensor Smart Tag as a garage door monitor or door sensor with the capability to warn user when the door has been left open for too long. 

The "Door Mode" options for this application is explained below. 

• Threshold Angle – How wide the door has to swing open in order to be recognized as open. Set this too small, the detection of door closing may take longer. Set this too large, detection of door open requires door is swing open wider. Set this to 30 degree covers the most application. 
• When door had been open for X minutes – When door is closed within that X minutes, no action will be taken (no emails will be sent, and the Tag will not beep.)  Or when door is opened, immediately email can be sent, and Tag can beep (which is useful for security application). 
• Beep the Tag - When door is open for longer than X minutes (or immediately), the Tag Manager will beep the tag. 
• Stop Tag beep when door/gate/window is closed - This option is only available when "When door is opened, immediately" is chosen and "Beep the Tag" is checked. Turning off this option will allow the tag to continue to beep even when the door is closed. Turn this option off if you intend to use the Smart Door Tag as a security device to keep beeping when door is ever opened (beep will stop after 30 seconds to conserve battery). When "When door has been open for X minutes" is chosen, the Tag will automatically stop beep when door is properly closed. 

The wireless configuration is an experimental feature that allows the user to fine tune the wireless standard used between Tag manager and Wireless Tags, to suit the needs of the user. For example, the user may want each Tag to have very long battery life so that he can attach the Tags to important items buried in his garage, to find them years later, when he doesn't mind if it takes up to 10 seconds before the tag beeps after the Beep button is clicked, or the range is not as far as 100 feet. Setting a longer delay in wireless config and faster data rate will allow this.  

By default, the configuration looks like below so that the wireless standard allows reasonably short response of within 3.5 seconds, range long enough to cover entire house, and battery life of 9 months. 

To increase battery life, one can choose a longer response time. The example below has estimated battery life of nearly 2 years.

To increase range at the expense of battery life, one can choose a slower data rate like the example below, or choose a faster one for better battery life. 

The reason that data rate affects range is a fundamental principle in communication. It is just like when you speak more slowly people can better understand you from far away. In the words of engineering, slower data rate allows narrower filter to be applied in receiver, so with smaller noise bandwidth, better signal to noise ratio and hence lower Bit  Error Rate (BER) is obtained. Below is something called a waterfall plot, which is actually measured for this system, that plots BER and received signal power, for different data rates. 

When the user changes the wireless configuration/standard, the new wireless config must be written to every Wireless Tag associated with the Tag Manager. When the user presses OK button, the Tag Manager automatically tries to write the change to every tag, but some Tag may not write successfully this first time. In stead of automatically keep trying, for these tags, the Tag Manager will use the old standard to communicate.

For these tags, the default action changes from "Beep It!" to "Migrate Wireless Config" like below. When this is clicked, the Tag Manager will retry writing the new wireless config to this tag. Eventually, all tags should be able to be updated with the new wireless configuration.

The Basic Tag Options is all about notification when Tag is deemed missing. To receive this notification, "Auto Update Interval" must be selected to other than "Manual". In such state, each tag will transmit a "I am alive" signal to Tag Manager at the selected interval. When Tag Manager does not receive such signal for 2 minutes more than the selected interval, the tag is deemed missing. 

• Apply to All Tags – When you click OK, the settings will be sent to all tags in your Tag List.
• Send email to – Enter an email address here to receive notification emails. 
  
• Beep at Tag Manager (PC) side – A notification sound at the PC side is enabled by default when Tag fires. 

Download PDF version of user manual here.