Find my Car Smarter Bluetooth 4.0 hands-on

Find my Car Smarter is a combination iPhone app and Bluetooth 4.0 accessory whose simple purpose is to easily, automagically keep track of your car when you've parked it somewhere, anywhere, that may be difficult to find on your own.

Whether it's a crowded mall parking lot, event venue spill-over, or as close as you could come on a city street, Find my Car Smarter's tiny USB Bluetooth 4.0 dongle will fire up and drop a GPS beacon where ever you park, and the Find my Car Smarter app will lead you right back.

Here's how it works -- the Find my Car Smarter dongle plugs right into a USB port on your car, or into a USB adapter that plugs into the "cigarette lighter"/ac power in your car and stays there, minding its own business. When you turn off the car and power gets cut, the ultra-low-power Bluetooth 4.0 connection causes the connected app to realize you've parked, and your iPhone GPS records your location.

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You then go shopping, eventing, or street-festivaling to your heart's content, free from the cognitive burden and mental overhead of having to remember where you parked. When you're done, launch the Find my Car app and it'll show you where you are relative to your car, and you just follow the directions back.

I did have some trouble with earlier versions of the app, and it did take some getting used to to figure out how it was supposed to work. Mostly because it does so much on its own -- I kept trying to over think and over do it. When I finally learned to trust it, like autocorrect, it did great.

The key is to just get out of your car and go. Don't touch the app, don't touch the dongle, don't give into old, outdated habits. Just. Go.

The only time you have to launch the app is when you need to find your car. The only time you have to touch the Bluetooth 4.0 dongle is never.

I'm a huge fan of futuristic technologies. I'm also terrible at remembering where I parked. For someone like me, that makes Find my Car Smarter not only fantastic, but incredibly helpful.

The Find my Car Smarter app is free in the App Store. The Find my Car Smarter Bluetooth 4.0 dongle is $25, or $30 with a USB adapter.