StickerScanner

I can still remember how awful it felt to lose my favorite jacket. When I realized it was gone, I felt nothing but butterflies in my stomach. The uncertainty of my situation started setting in. Was it still there? Did someone steal it? Where was it now? Trying to answer these questions was hands down the most gut-wrenching part of the whole experience.

I intend to change that.

Since that day, I developed a solution that I could use to recover my personal belongings if they were ever lost. It is a low-cost, more versatile alternative to Airtags and Tile Trackers that are already on the market. I call it the StickerScanner.

Currently, this is in very early stages of development, but my minimum viable product consists of a custom-printed sticker with a QR-Code prominently featured on it and the words, “If found, please scan”. If the code is scanned, it will link to a Google Form where those who have found the lost item can input relevant information such as their name, where they found the lost item, and how the owners can contact them.

So far, my StickerScanners have helped me to recover my AirPod charging case!

In the future, I would like to experiment with solutions that build on this idea like using a community-wide network to make reporting lost items more accessible or creating communal drop-off spaces IRL for lost goods that users can pick up(especially if the recovered item is in a high-risk area).

If you are interested in discussing more, please send me a message!