Nokia Treasure Tag Mini – smaller but does less – Go for the original treasure tag!

The Nokia Treasure Tag Mini – I loved the concept of the original Nokia Treasure Tag and in my mind the Nokia Treasure Tag mini was the same thing in a smaller package. I bought it with the intention of sticking it to the collar of my cat which has now learnt to disappear around our student house (which is a fairly big house so we can spend a lot of time looking for him). This was £18 on eBay and I wasn’t expecting this until Monday.

Long story short, I guess I should have gone for with the original Treasure Tag because this doesn’t actually have the features I requir (no bleeping amongst other things). But it’ll still be useful for keeping track of my other items.

Yes it is even more thinner and lighter than the previous version. The box was surprisingly tiny although it doesn’t look that way in the photo above.

This is 30mm by 30mm by 5.8mm. One of the smallest and thinnest Nokia things around.

• Bluetooth 4.0
• UI features: Accessory application framework AAF;Battery level indicator; Operates with downloadable application
• Primary battery: CR2016 (5000LC) – 70mAh.

Next to the 830.

Inside the box, it comes in separately as a treasure tag (the white bit) the orange rubber band thing and the battery. It was a bit of a faff originally to put together but after getting used to it, you don’t need the pin at all to remove the cover. I think this kind of rubber connection is a lot more secure than the original treasure tag which could slip off as it’s essentially a cover, where as this one is more of a strap.

Using it? Well it wasn’t as straight forward as the original treasure tag. For one, there’s no NFC to connect with. At least it doesn’t say so or behave in such a way. It took us about 10 minutes to originally connect. The connection instructions from the Treasure Tag app isn’t so ideal for the treasure tag mini because it says to remove the battery and reinsert to find the tag! That is not a user friendly instruction.We tried over and over again to connect and there were so many unsuccessful attempts. Afterwards, it was much easier to find and connect. BTW, when you do eventually connect the tag, each time you remove the battery, the treasure tag app deletes that associated tag (though I guess you wouldn’t be removing the battery so much after, other than to change it when it’s low).

Once connected, there’s not really much you can do. However, it will tell you when you’re out of range. I wasn’t able to get the map option that tells you where it was last connected (but the box says it can do that) as I only got the package at midnight and I wasn’t up for walking around outside to get out of range. So this will be useful, say, if I was to connect this to my stethoscope, I’ll be reminded NOT to leave it behind when it gets out of range (so definitely not leave it at home or worse, leave it at hospital where it would definitely disappear forever).

You can be connected to multiple bluetooth devices at once. At first it did disconnect but you can connect to more than one BT item and still be connected to your treasure tag (it would be a bit annoying if you had to keep remembering to connect to it). I’ll find out tomorrow if it can automatically reconnect.

That’s pretty much it. What am I missing?

• Bleep/sound feature. That was really what I needed so I could at least bleep the tag and find where the cat is by listening out. This works in reverse to bleep and find your phone.
• NFC – not really missing it but it would make for a quicker initial pairing.
• Augmented Reality – it didn’t make the final release but it was demoed with the original treasure tag. With the viewfinder, you can move around and find where it was last.

Other things to consider but didn’t test yet:

• Battery life
• Map feature

Things I’d like:

• Proximity map thing that tells you if you’re getting closer to the tag.
• There really weren’t any options when you’re connected to the treasure tag mini (unlike with the original treasure tag).

There are plenty of alternative gadgets like this out there but I’m not aware which are WP compatible.

Category: Accessories, Nokia