A Dream Of Intelligent Luggage Tags

Something I’ve long dreamt of: An intelligent luggage tag.

Here’s a concept for a Bluetooth luggage tag that lights up when it’s in range of your Bluetooth gadget, helping you to identify it on the carousel. The Bluebird tag would contain additional information, so should it go astray the luggage could be returned to you. You could have separate tags for each item. (Found on blueserker.)

Now I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, not least because the Bluebird design looks so good. But others may have been here first: Samonsite unveiled a Bluetooth suitcase two years back which supposedly contains information for tracking and identifying luggae. Admittedly since then not much has happened: It’s not even clear whether the cases were ever sold. Three years ago Red-M said it was teaming up with Denmark’s BlueTags to use Bluetooth to help manage and track luggage and to help find it when necessary. I can’t find any subsequent mention of this, although BlueTags are now being used to track children at a Danish zoo, which is pretty much the same thing.

I like the Bluebird idea, but I’m not sure it would work. As soon as more than one person at the carousel has these devices, they become less useful, unless there’s some way of uniquely identifying each piece of luggage. Otherwise all you’ve got are lots of bits of flashing luggage going around the carousel. (One way around this would be for your PDA to tell you how far away your luggage is on the conveyor. But somehow that seems to have crossed some sort of nerd acceptability line.)

The other thing is that every Bluetooth device transmits a signal (unlike RFID, for example, which has a passive and an active element. The RFID tag doesn’t transmit, it only receives; it’s the scanner that transmits). So would lots of bits of Bluetooth luggage in the airplane hold be beaming confusing signals that interfere with the navigation system?

To me the biggest headache that could use a technology like this is reassuring the passenger. Using RFID or some similar technology on luggage would allow both the airline to check it has all its luggage aboard, but also the cabin crew to confirm for the passenger that their luggage is safely stowed. Airlines could even allow passengers to check for themselves, perhaps via the inflight display (key in their luggage number via a touchscreen, activating an RFID scanner in the hold to look for the item.)

Indeed, Delta Airlines this month said they were doing something like that. On July 1 it said it would use RFID to track luggage through its U.S. network. And Hong Kong’s airport last month said it was going to use RFID to track luggage going through the airport. But I can’t see airlines allowing passengers to do the monitoring, for the simple reason that if the scanner doesn’t find the luggage — either because it’s not aboard or the technology doesn’t work properly — you’re going to have a lot of very unhappy passengers insisting the plane turn around and go back to the gate. Things could get ugly.