It looks like HTC has come up with a contender in the smart accessory market to compete with Samsung’s TecTile and Nokia’s Treasure Tag. The HTC Fetch device is rumored to be a portable electronic device with built-in Bluetooth capability that can be hooked to your keys or other items and be tracked from an app on your HTC phone.
This tiny accessory was leaked on a page with mobile tech blog and accessories retailer, Clove; I can’t find the associated page on their site anymore, but our referenced sources below were kind enough to get a couple of print screens for us and you have or will see them in this post.
There are not a lot of specific details to go on at this point, but the HTC Fetch should be a nice accessory that users can attach to keys, luggage, backpack, or other things that could walk away and easily keep track of them. If you have a bad habit of misplacing your keys then this tool might be good for you. In theory, a user can open an app on their HTC phone to get the location of the HTC Fetch as the location is triangulated via a Bluetooth connection between the two items. There’s no word on if NFC will be used to initiate the connection between the pair, but its competitors are using this method and would certainly help the cause.
Before you count this off as just a tracking device for your keys also know that this might have the ability to interract with your smartphone too. For instance, there is said to be a button on the HTC Fetch that the user can press to close the shutter when your phone is in a camera app. Maybe that button will have a programmable option allowing the owner to set it to do other actions, like a slide advanced during a slideshow if streamed through an HTC phone.
With most of us cautious about battery life in our electronics these days, if the technology controlling the amount of consumption in this device is Bluetooth 4.0 LE (Low Energy) then the device should hold a charge for days and will most likely receive a charge via a corded power source.
Like we said before, this device hasn’t been announced and we can’t find the page on Clove’s website anymore, but there’s a pretty good chance that we will see this tech with HTC’s logo on it. Maybe we’ll even get a commercial with Robert Downey Jr. pressing the HTC Fetch button to do something cool!
Source: SlashGear via AndroidCommunity
