Many travelers experience losing their luggage while on a trip, and in worse cases fail to recover it anymore. Fortunately, Samsonite has introduced a tracking beacon to help travelers find their luggage using a smartphone app, the Track&Go.
Samsonite's Track&Go device allows owners to privately and securely track their Samsonite suitcases with a Bluetooth beacon that uses Google's Eddystone Ephemeral Identifiers (EID), a privacy or security protocol.
"We're excited to work with Google on this project to make sure that our beacons support Eddystone EIDs. Missing or permanently lost luggage is the nightmare of every traveller. As the world's largest luggage manufacturer, we wanted to find a way to make this issue a thing of the past," said Samsonite CEO Ramesh Tainwala.
The Bluetooth beacon, designed and assembled by Accent Systems, is attached to the Samsonite Track&Go bag. Owners of the bag must register the beacon to Samsonite's app Travlr, developed by mobile agency In The Pocket. Travlr is a free-of-charge Samsonite app that was launched in September of 2015 giving travelers tips and reminders about their flight.
The new Track&Go solution can locate luggage at a distance of 70 meters. The app can also notify the owner whenever the luggage is either moving closer or farther.
If the luggage does not reach its owner, the app will flag the luggage as "lost". Then the app will search users' information within its database. Anyone using Travlr within the 70-meter range can pick up the luggage's EID. The information picked up by other Travlr users, including location and time stamp, will be sent to the luggage owner.
The company plans to launch the first Track&Go suitcase in the European market by the end of 2016. It also aims to reach a wider market by 2017.
Samsonite plans to collaborate with airports and companies specializing in baggage handling to extend their network of Bluetooth beacons within the most visited travel hubs. In addition, the company expects that all smartphone users would be able to retrieve their lost suitcases.
