PROTAG Duet Bluetooth Tracker - Retail Packaging - Blue

I'm a professional technology writer for various Mac magazines (MacUser, MacFormat, etc.) and I am use to writing reviews of products that receive 3, 4, and 5-start ratings. Writing about anything less is frankly a waste of time as consumers want to know the best-of-the-best or at least on the upper end of the scale.But I was so disappointed with this product, that I had to write something on Amazon simply because this product is flawed in so many ways.How can I say this nicely...this product sucks (and I have NEVER written that in a review). I try to write reviews that at least have positive things to say about a product or service, but there is actually NO REDEEMING VALUE WHATSOEVER IN THIS PRODUCT. PERIOD.The support is awful in the box and online, there is no FAQ or general technical or problem-solving Q&A online, and the company responded to my questions with vague pre-written statements not even addressing the Bluetooth connection issues and ways to resolve it.The issues of reliable (and that is a key word here) Bluetooth connectivity are so rampant that this product is virtually un-usable. Sometimes it connects and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes (lots more often than not) it finds a device and then it doesn’t. You can blame that on Blueooth technology issues in general or you can blame this on the Protag people for not exploring ways to improve that reliability before coming to market.But the real issue of this product that goes to its heart is the manufacturing - the sole responsibility of the Protag people. The device's shabby and shoddy construction is core to its demise. Instead of making the backdoor of this device one-piece with a plastic hinge to ensure a snug, reliable connection of the battery, it relies on two, separate plastic pieces to simply ‘snap’ together. The result (at least on the two Protags I received) was a poor fit that wouldn't ensure a reliable battery connection. With the battery installed correctly and the back on, I had to physically press down on the back for it to come on! This is simply poor, poor manufacturing with little thought to functionality. Poor planning, poor testing, and no thought of reliability. It was as if the Protag people thought, “We got our Kickstarter crowdfunding money now. Let’s just get it out there.”With the issues of Bluetooth reliability already in question, not being able to reliably tell if the device is on throws a whole other issue into the mix. Is it the battery not being on that’s the problem, or Bluetooth issues? I can’t tell. What a mess!This product simply doesn’t deliver on its promise in a reliable fashion. When (and if) you lose your keys and you’re frustrated in finding them, the last thing you want is the product you bought and relied on to find them fail you at every corner. This product at least delivers on THAT promise.Portage Duet is no tracker. It’s not even close. What anyone wants is a product to deliver on its promise RELIABLY and CONSISTENTLY. You expect your car to deliver on that every day, don’t you, otherwise you’d fix it or get rid of it, right?! This is no different! Fact is, you can’t fix this because the technology, support and manufacturing all let each other down.If you buy this product then the chances are more than 80 percent that you’ll be sending it back for a refund. Is that worth buying for less than a 20 percent chance you’ll be happy?! That answer is a NO brainer.(Tested on an iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge)

Your browser does not support HTML5 video.  Wish I never purchased this item. Would not recommend. When I first ordered the duet I used the app for android. It was constantly in the notification drawer. It was more of a nuisance than help so most of the time I had the app turned off. Probably used it for half a day before just not even opening the app. Used it as a keychain for a couple months until the first battery died then put the new battery in and installed the app on iPhone. Now the duet makes a constant, annoying ticking sound. Additionally, it alerted me that my phone and keys were separated from 2 feet away. App seems buggy and unfinished. Certain menus disappear while you're reading them. Really seems like a beta product, not something that should have been released. Oh yea and this thing will fall apart on you multiple times. Drop your keys once, expect to be chasing down the rolling battery and trying to find that tiny button that's supposed to ring your phone. Mine doesn't even have that button anymore because it's broken apart so many times I ended up losing it. What happened to screwing things together?

Terribile, poorly constructed item. Lid, continues to fall off. I've been lucky to find snap on cover in the street and driveway servral times.... Also if you have an energy savings device built-in to your phone, it must be turned off. Device kicks in shuts off Bluetooth and alarm goes off in the middle of the night.Wishing this was a better built unit, where maybe a screw of better snap was built to prevent the cover from coming off and than loosing the battery.

I read mixed reviews on the protag, Pally smartfinder and whereismytag - so i bought all 3.They are all pretty much useless. Its a neat trick when you know where your keys are but you are going to have a tough time using it if first you have to play around and connect. The Protag often has a loose battery and or turns itself off. The whereismytag is very quite also its one button is constantly going off in my pocket. the Pally is ok sometimes. It has a solar panel so that might help keep it working. It reconnects on bluetooth fairly quickly and the range is decent. There is little point in mentioning the range because it can vary with so many factors - I hate them all. I will however be buying more pally smart finders... a one-eyed man is king amongst the blind. One really anointing thing about Pally is that it almost forces you to place your phones "location" on high accuracy. you can decline but you will always be answering that question. This seems like some kind of agreement with google for advertizing oportunities. I ONLY want GPS location non "anonymous" location info sent back to.... FIX the APP!!

I like this. It does what I thought it would do. The disabling of the alarm if keys and phone are in the same Wi Fi zone is useful. The people who comment that the app shows their belongings off the coast of Africa haven't enable location services for the app on their phone so it shows the keys at 0 degrees north and 0 degree east/wast on the greenwich meridian which if they cared to check on a map is off the coast of Africa. I don't use the GPS function myself due to the effect on battery life of the phone. Also I don't really see the point. I use it as a virtual leash for my keys. When out walking and the bluepoint connection drops the alarm sounds ...... so retrace my steps to look for them. Where that happens is irelavent to me because the alarm has just sounded to alert me. I know where I am All the GPS feature can tell you is where the connection droppedThe page feature is useful. If know you keys are within range but you can't find them and you have your phone and visa versa. The alarm sound on the duet is reasonably loud and good enough if you are listening out for it. The range varies and the app needs to running in the background for the concept to work. In the open the range is about 50m. I am forever dropping my keys and it has already helped me find them. Also if I go out and forget my keys it tells me I've forgotten them when the alarm goes off at the end of the drive. This saves me later having to frantically search the car for them and wondering where I might have left them instead I go straight to my neighbour on my return for the spare key ...If you dropped something in street it"s true that by the time the duet app alerted you somebody could have picked whatever you.ve dropped and run off. It is not a security device more an aide memoir. If you want a security device buy a pair of handcuffs ....UPDATE. I don't use this any more --- initially it did everything I wanted it to do but it became unreliable .. I wouldn't buy it again

Good but not perfect. Plenty of options for enabling/disabling the alarm. The 'radar' function works OK but isn't ideal. What is useful is that you can use the device to locate your phone and vice versa. I'm not sure I've got 25-quid's worth of use out of it yet, but equally it is happy sitting on my keyring and is unobtrusive. Cautionary point: you need to leave Bluetooth enabled on your phone for this to work, so it will drain the battery more than usual. Would I buy this again? Probably, but it isn't a dead cert.To be honest, I bought this device to try and locate someone who was stealing my mail (I live in a block of flats and was hoping that they would take it, and then I would be able to use the 'radar' function to locate them. Unfortunately the 'radar' function just isn't effective enough: it sometimes takes quite a while to pick up the tracker, so is too time-consuming to use. And, being Bluetooth, range is rather limited).

The tag frequently disconnects from my phone, and sometimes stays disconnected for quite a bit. The speaker works but is very quiet, not good for a loud environment. The matte coating looks nice, but on my keyring wrapped in my wallet most of the day it has started scratching off quite soon and doesn't look so nice now. When the time comes to replace this I'll be trying a different tag.I will say that the button to make my phone alarm is very useful. However, it has activated accidentally once or twice even with the double press requirement on. I recommend turning off the proximity (disconnect) alarm - it is extremely annoying as it frequently disconnects.

So i made a video unboxing the duet so you can see what exactly it is packing ! and how it loks when it comes in a package. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR7O3sgKgwwSo starting off the device is small and compact so it basically fits easily in your devices! very easy to setup and you can get your devices connected in no time! also the free wifi zone is pretty good sinceit prevents the device from beep[ing unessarily in However since it runs on bluetooth i lately am noticing that my phone runs out of battery pretty fast compared to before i got the device hence i keep carrying an external charger.also once in while when the battey in in my one pocket and the phone is in the other i hear false alarms! but happens few times so its no biggieall in all the device defintely needs to be developed and has space for improvement!! but for a proce like this you cant really complain!

Using it with an Iphone5, it worked ok to start with. The problem is that you need to set up an account with the manufacturer to get into the app, for which you need confirmation of your email address. I've tried to set this up with several different addresses but never got any confirmation email back. After a while, the phone app just stopped working and I can't log in to find out why. The little light on the device still flashes when you press the button, but it doesn't do anything. Very disappointed.