MOBILE ALARMS that use a proximity sensor to warn when a device is being stolen or left behind have been available for some years. Generally they consist of a fob that you keep in your pocket and a tag that you stick onto the device that you want to protect. An alarm sounds on both when the two are more than a certain distance apart.

The Nio differs in that your mobile phone does the work of the fob and the distance to the electronic tag is estimated from the power Bluetooth requires to maintain a wireless link. There are, in theory at least, several advantages to this arrangement.

One is that you are protecting two devices because the alarm sounds if either the phone or the tagged device goes AWOL - unless, of course, both are stolen at once.

Phones being essentially portable computers, you also get more scope for tuning the system to your needs. You can tag several devices and allot a different ring tone to each; a locate function allows you to find a device you have mislaid. You can schedule when the system is activated, and with which particular setup, though this feature has yet to be implemented on the smartphone used for this review, an HP iPaq 914 running Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional.

Developer Tenbu said it is testing all Windows Mobile 6.1 models and they should support all features by October.

The INQ has already pointed ou t that one Nio feature makes the system a little safer to use than earlier products. An alarm going off during a street theft can land you in a dangerous situation, as your reviewer discovered while trying one out in New York a few years back, when two street thieves made off with a tagged camera.

Source: Inquirer