Nio portable alarm

Product: Nio mobile security tag
Review: Bluetooth phone-based system can protect multiple devices, and you.
Website: www.bluenio.com
Specifications: Three range settings up to 25 metres. Supports Windows Mobile 5.0 and 6.1 phones, Blackberries and many Java-enabled phones. Full list here.
Price: £39.95

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 out 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.

One thief went through a distracting display of nuttiness while the other lifted the camera. The tag was not activated, fortunately, because if the alarm had gone off the thieves would have been cornered and might have resorted to violence to get away.

Tenbu argues plausibly that a thief will more often drop a device and run if an alarm goes off; but the Nio gives you a choice of three ‘safety zones' beyond which the alarm will trigger, allowing you to choose discretion over valour by ensuring that it goes off at a safe distance.

Oddly the manual describes a short-range trigger as the "high-risk" setting, because it is concerned with the risk of theft rather than to the user. It suggests that you set a short range in places like railway stations and airports where there are a lot of thieves, and a longer range at home or work where you may not want to carry both devices.

Similarly a Warn option, which vibrates your phone silently just before the alarm triggers, is seen as a way of avoiding unnecessary noise rather than alerting you before a thief realises the device is alarmed.

In our tests the alarm triggered at 8, 16 and 26 metres respectively at the high, medium and low risk settings in the open street. Walls and other obstructions could reduce these distances.

An alarm will most often be triggered through absent-mindedness, when a tagged object is accidentally left behind, which could mean big trouble if it happens to be a Ministry of Defence laptop crammed with state secrets. A single tag and the software costs a not inconsiderable £39.95, so perhaps the Nio's biggest market will be among organisations concerned more with protecting data rather than machines.

The downside of all the Nio options is that they add complexity. Older systems have the virtue of needing only a single switch and leave no doubt as to whether or not they are active. The Nio is quite easy to set up: you just click on a download link, opt to install the software on your phone, and press the reset button on the tag to prime it for pairing. But it lacks a clear indication that the system is active and the set-up screens could be better designed: one confusingly offers a Connect option when two devices are already linked.

The tag, the size of a narrow matchbox, is actually larger than some devices, such as USB sticks, that it might be called upon to protect. It has to be tied on, which is more secure than, say, a magnetic clamp, but not all devices will have a convenient attachment point. It has a mini-USB port for charging by a computer or a supplied mains adapter and the battery did not run out during three days of testing. But the phone battery did, which triggered the alarm because of the broken Bluetooth link. You might regard this as a useful alert but it can be very annoying, for instance if it wakes you in the middle of the night, and of course Bluetooth will itself put an extra strain on the battery.

In Short
Highly configurable mobile alarm allows you to choose which level of risk you are prepared to take. µ

The Good:
Fairly easy to set up, protects two devices at once at minimum.

The Bad:
Tag large for what it does, pricey except for organisations with data to protect.

The Ugly:
Low battery can set off alarm.

Bartender's Score:
6/10