Review: Chipolo - don't lose anything ever again

Smartphones fulfil more and more purposes for us these days, replacing most things in our pockets from maps to money, but there is one thing that it has not yet made obsolete – keys. Yes there are connected locks and apps designed to replace your frontdoor key, but they have yet to catch on and they also don’t replace your bike-lock, or garage door, or any of the many others keys we all have on our keyrings.

Keys have worked perfectly well for hundreds of years, but they have always suffered from a major issue – we keep losing them! There is not a person on earth who has not at some point forgotten where they put their keys, and then has spent the next few minutes searching down the back of the sofa and every other spot imaginable to try and find them. Most the time we find them pretty quickly, but what if you left them at work or your girlfriend’s house, how can you find them quickly and easily? This is where Chipolo comes in – a modern solution to an age-old problem.

The device comes in a number of forms, but the most popular (and the one we’re testing today) is a little circular keyring, that you attach to your keys and means you will never lose your keys again.

Look & feel

The Chipolo is a little circular 5-6mm thick keyring with a diameter of 35-37mm and comes in a variety of different colours, including black, white, yellow, green, blue, and red. They have a pretty minimal design, made from just a simple block colour with the Chipolo logo embossed on one side, and feel like they’re made from a sturdy plastic.

The keyring comes in two forms, the Classic and the Plus, with the Classic a couple of millimetres smaller, but the Plus with the added bonus of being water resistant and with a longer-lasting battery.

Specifications

Chipolo Classic

Range: 60m – line of sight
Size: 35mm diameter / 5mm thick
Volume: 92 dB
Water resistant: No
Battery life: 9 months user-replaceable
Supported devices: iOS 9+ / Android 4.4+

Chipolo Plus

Range: 60m – line of sight
Size: 37mm diameter / 5.9mm thick
Volume: 92 dB
Water resistant: IPX5 Standard
Battery life: 12 months with renewal programme available for discounted recycling/replacement (not user-replaceable)
Supported devices: iOS 9+ / Android 4.4+

Setup

Setting up the Chipolo is a straight-froward experience, with the Chipolo app (Android/iOS) guiding you through the process.

You first need to sign up for a Chipolo account, which can can do through the app by linking up your Google or Facebook account, or with a standard username and password.
Click the Add Chipolo now button and select the type of Chipolo you want to add – Classic, Plus, or Card.
Agree to the Bluetooth and Location permissions the app needs to run to find your Chipolo
Firmly press the Chipolo to sync
Name your Chipolo, so you remember what you attached it to, whether that is your keys, a backpack, your bike, or something else.
That’s it. If you want to add another Chipolo to keep track of another item, you just go through the process again.

In use

Once you’ve got your Chipolo set up, if you ever misplace your keys, finding them again is as simple as opening up the app.

In the app, if your keys are nearby (such as hidden down the back of the sofa) the app will let you know and give you the option of making the device ring – which makes it much easier to zero in on the location and find your keys.

Alternatively, if you keys are not nearby and you’ve left them elsewhere, the app will show you the location of where you last had them on a map – so you can see if you’ve left them at work, at the gym, or somewhere else.

If you’ve really lost your keys, such as having left them on the train or in a taxi, then you can mark your keys as “lost” within the app, and every other Chipolo user becomes your search team. If anyone else running the app on their phone comes across your keys, you will get a notification with the location someone was last near them.

On the reverse, if you have your keys but have lost your phone down the back of the sofa, a quick double click on the Chipolo itself will make your phone ring. We’ve all had our friends and friends ring our mobile to try and find which room we left it in, that can now be done with your own key-ring.

As an added bonus, you can share Chipolos with family and friends, so all of you can track a device. This is less useful for your keys, but great if you’re sharing something like a bike or an iPad and want to know who has it or where they left it – just attach a Chipolo and share it through the app.

The Chipolos are an elegant solution to the problem of losing items, and work straight out of the box – and I’m keeping mine attached to my keyring for the foreseeable future, which is always a good sign. The only downside really, is that the battery only lasts 9 months for the Classic, after which you will have to replace it yourself, or 12 months for the Plus, after which you will have to send it back to Chipolo for a discounted and updated replacement.