Usually, the identification is easy:- it's a piece of electronic jewelry (blinky earring, or pin);
- an old annoy-a-tron;
- or Bluetooth tag, like a Tile item finder.
Today,
a call comes in from a well-respected private investigator in Boston.
He has a corporate client whose employee "found this thing."She takes a photo, sends it to him, who sends it to us... via low resolution text message...
Rough guess...
A Bluetooth item finder, similar to a Tile, but a Chinese knockoff branded with some corporate logo. Possibly a promotional item?
We
later learned it was in her bedroom, mounted to the wall, not found in a
covert location. She had pulled it off the wall to take the photo. We
did not receive a photo of the mounting piece, or a mention of its
placement.Later we eventually received a photo of the flip side...
Hummm... not too helpful, but no evidence of on the front of a pinhole for video, or a microphone on the circuit board. No battery seen, but the two large solder tabs and circles on the circuit board indicate there is a battery on the other side of the board.
Why would someone mount something like this on a bedroom wall?!?!
One possibility emerged... "How to find your lost iPhone with Tile."Nope. Tiles have their logo on them. Ours looks different.
Another possibility... Yahoo changed their logo last Fall.Could they have sent out a promotional "Tile" with their newly designed exclamation point logo on it?
Close, but no prize.
Okay, let's start fresh.
Say, the Tile is a MacGuffin.
Look elsewhere.
What other wall-warts do we know of?
HVAC sensors, for one.
Google search....
Case closed.
This was a good investigative process refresher for us, and a thing we will all remember next time "this thing" shows up.
Extra Credit:
~Kevin
