Nut Smart Tracker is a pebble-shaped device which can be attached to your key chain. It is a product of Beijing Zizai Technology Co, LTD. While used to track or find your lost devices and keys, it also comes in various colors like cloud-white, orange or lime green. It is very light and thin making it very portable, communicates with your device via Bluetooth 4.0, it is compatible with the iPhone 6/6+ and Android 4.2+ devices. This is done with an app which can be downloaded by scanning the QR code on the Nut’s box. The box, by the way, comes with an extra battery while one is installed in the device. These are replaceable and last six months.
Design
The device feels great and light. It is very portable and can be opened if you need to get access to the replaceable battery. It has a single button for pairing and locating any of your lost devices. It also has a multi-color LED used to inform the user about device status like connected, searching, battery low and so on. It has a groove where a cord can be attached for putting the Nut on your key chain. It is entirely made of plastic but not the cheap kind. Bluetooth 4.0 lives inside with a tiny speaker that’s used for alerting you with beeps when you are try finding your lost keys. I do wish that GPS was onboard as advertised, especially with it being a tracker of lost things.
Experience
As said above it requires an app to be downloaded by scanning a QR code from the box. This app is from the Google Play Store and it is updated regularly, more than I expected. This company is one of the few Chinese companies standing behind their products with constant updates. They do this because the software has bugs and is almost unusable. The Nut Smart Tracker doesn’t seem to follow the normal Chinese OEM mentality. It is a very refined product. Both hardware and software. You sign into the app using your phone number if you’re in China or your Social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Weibo or QQ. The interface is straight forward prompting you to pair your Nut with easy to follow animated guides. It has maps built-in to track you keys if they are attached to the Nut using its GPS. The app also shows you the proximity of the device you use from the Nut. Because it has Bluetooth 4.0 you can pair many Nut trackers to one device and track different things at once in one place.
You can find your lost device by holding on the button on the Nut for about 4 seconds. Your device will then ring and the alert duration can be set from the app. When you want to find your keys or Nut just hit the search button in the app and the Nut emits a very loud beep. The two-way device tracking works very well. I used to have connection and disconnection issues, but those were fixed quickly with an update. The range is pretty long I would say up to 30-40m in an open field without walls and about 10-20m with walls or other objects blocking the waves. It is pretty good.
Pros: Light, cheap, reliable, long-lasting battery, Doesn’t drain your phone’s battery, portable, nice looking, well-thought software and feature set, multiple Nuts can be connected to one device.
Cons: Almost none except being really picky and wanting waterproofing or water resistance for some extreme cases. Also, I wish the LED was more informative and easier to understand what’s going on. And there is no GPS on board.
You can get this product here from tinydeal.com and we thank them for supplying the product. Head over to their website, grab yours and please while you’re there tell them we sent you.
[…] and later find its location using your phone or tablet. Lose your phone or tablet? you can use the Nut mini to call your phone or tablet. Compared to its competitors it is cheap too costing just $15 as a […]
I bought 4 of these and setup 2 right away – easy setup and connect.
When attempting to locate my keys, app reported that “nut try disconnected at key”
After trying several things, I swapped out a new battery from an unused Nut and it connected.
None of the pieces I purchased were shipped with a spare battery as you state in the article,
battery should not be dead in 3 days – just more Chinese quality issues?
Ill give these a little more time before I make a final decision, but at this point I’m not impressed, When I needed it the first time – it didnt work! and those sticky connect strips dont hold more than a day or two attached to my TV remote.
-Remotes are extremely motile because they get used and passed around a lot. Also depending on your home I doubt the device can stick on a remote. Probably meant for sth else.
-If you got it from Tinydeal or an official reseller you should get an extra battery in case you got the nut. Nut mini doesn’t have one. If you didn’t get it, request it. It is your right and the reseller probably took it out to sell as extra which isn’t cool.
-Mine still works after a long period of use since this review was posted so my guess is you got a fake/used/defective battery. Check that out as well.
Thanks for reading the article but remember that is your personal experience which I definitely haven’t heard before. Hope I helped._JM
why do you say it has GPS when I get does not?
It does have its uses but the software is so hard to use even a 5 year old would get stuck with it.
Is there a chance there will be some decent software to be able to use it.
Mine is sitting within 2 foot of me and yet it shows FAR on the app when it should show near.
I have 3-pack of the Nut Mini which is supposed to be the next-gen device. The design is a nice enough and the price is good. The software is ok too, but as Chandler said above, battery life is terrible. I’m not sure exactly when it died – it doesn’t warn you – but there’s no way it made 6 weeks.
That was the case with all three devices and is an absolute showstopper. I don’t need to be babysitting batteries every month. Avoid until the work out power management.
Thanks for the warning! I don’t waste my money!
Just a quick comment on battery life of the new Nut3. With a good quality Maxell CR2016 two of my units have lasted 8 months. They are certainly worth a look with that sort of performance and battery life.
[…] we reviewed Nut and Nut mini Smart trackers, there weren’t many trackers their matching price to performance. […]
There’s a photo that shows the Nut attached to a dog’s collar. I’m interested in using it to locate my dog, who sometimes manages to Houdini his way out of our fenced yard. Will the app give me a map/gps location on my phone to find my pooch?