Smart luggage trackers

What do you think about the idea of a smart travel luggage tracker that has a screen and you can enter information instantly with your phone and change this information whenever you want?

It's not an unappealing idea.

My concerns would be
1) What's the battery life like? This screen would have to be very efficient - maybe e-paper.
2) If you can update it remotely, then security on that had better be very good to ensure someone else isn't updating my tracker.
3) Sounds like it could be expensive.
4) Do I really need to ever update my information? My contact information is unlikely to change in a hurry. And a sticker with that information seems just as useful.

I initially thought you were changing the information on where your luggage was (because it is a luggage tracker). I didn't see why you would want to do that.

Now that Peter has explained what was meant that you would change your own home location or maybe your current location, I am even less impressed by this idea. I don't see any reason why my luggage needs to know where I am. Or where I live more than just a piece of paper with the information on it somewhere in/on the luggage.

Maybe I have missed something.

I can imagine usecases, such as generally not showing any information other than maybe a contact email address, but updating it in real time if your luggage actually goes missing - then it can point to your current accommodation, include a local phone number, whatever.

The thing is, though, luggage goes missing so infrequently, that buying something like this is a long-term investment. Which means you need to have trust that it'll still function one or two decades from now. And it's effectively guaranteed that it won't. The infrastructure for updating the information will be centralized, and will have been turned off long since (probably within 2-3 years of the product launch; faster if the company was a startup which was acquired by a bigger tech company). It'll probably follow the current fad of requiring an app to update (keeping that updated over long time periods will be too costly, and making it subscription based will turn off all potential customers, so that'll be end of life when current mobile OSes will stop being supported), rather than a universally accessible website, have security problems (imagine the worth of that trove of personal information, including maybe realtime travel information!), or generally be plagued by any of the myriad other reasons which makes the internet of shit (previously known as the internet of things) such a bad and wasteful idea. The alternative of decentralized infrastructure which will Just Work for everyone, while still being secure? Yeah, that sounds like a pipe dream to me, too, and anyone who would actually solve that, wouldn't waste their time on putting the result in something as low-margin as luggage trackers.

[ Edit: Edited on 8 Jul 2024, 12:59 GMT by Sander ]

We always just stick a trip itinerary inside our luggage and also include one on our luggage tags. If anyone needs to find us, they have the information either on the tag or inside the luggage. We've had our luggage lost by the airlines numerous times and it's always worked to get it back to us. Shredded, it makes great garden compost when we get home.

Quoting Beausoleil

We always just stick a trip itinerary inside our luggage and also include one on our luggage tags. If anyone needs to find us, they have the information either on the tag or inside the luggage. We've had our luggage lost by the airlines numerous times and it's always worked to get it back to us. Shredded, it makes great garden compost when we get home.

Me too. Plus not packing anything valuable in checked luggage.

There are good things to do digitally, but this reminds me of back in the early days of computers when people tried to figure out how you could have a computer generated grocery shopping list.

The idea of a smart luggage tracker with a screen is a good one, but questions arise regarding cost, battery life, etc. If such trackers exist, I would be happy to take a look at them, but I would probably not buy one