Device could prevent baggage carousel hell

I wish I'd had the Easy-2-Pick electronic luggage tag in hand Sunday night. I was just off a long-delayed flight that appeared to transport the entire population of Southern California to San Francisco. And wouldn't you know it? Ninety percent of the seemingly millions of passengers jostling for their suitcases seemed to have the same black bag.

(Credit: Israel21C)

The Easy-2-Pick, expected out this fall for $15 to $20, is a handheld device that lights up, beeps, and vibrates once your suitcase makes it onto the carousel and within 40 to 50 feet of where you're standing. The heads-up gives you a chance to stand away from the crowd, possibly avoiding an elbow in the gut as you try to locate your lookalike bag.

The gadget comes courtesy of Israeli developer Yoav Ben-David and his partner, Zvi Kanor of American Express Travel in Tel Aviv. It consists of a circular receiver on a keychain and a credit card-size transmitter that goes around the handle of your baggage.

The pair also developed a less sophisticated, less expensive gizmo--a $4 strip that fits onto a suitcase and flashes LEDS in four different colors once it hits the carousel. The owner of the baggage sets the light combination.

(Via Israel 21C)

[johnbuker]

So how many airport backage carousels are going to be locked down and searched by TSA because a freaked out baggage handler got the $@@% scared out of him when a bag he picked up starts vibrating, beeping and flashing?

[c|net Reader]

The idea, generally speaking, has merit. However, the implementation is flawed. Suppose fifty people on a flight have one of these gadgets -- all frequent fliers hoping to simplify baggage claim on a regular basis. If just five have look alike baggage, there will be five bags lighting up. While that reduces the number from one hundred to five, it doesn't reduce it to one.

If the device were to produce sounds, in the handheld component, that vary based upon proximity, then it could alert the user to when the desired bag were on the other side, on the same side, immediately in front, etc.

Obviously, there must be some sort of encoding to reasonably uniquely identify one bag among many with the same product attached.

[dudeluna]

my understanding is that the receiver in your hand starts to vibrate, not the bag.