Speck

    Speck. A tracker the size of a full stop.

    A tracker the size of a full stop.

    That pink full stop is a Speck at its real size, three millimetres. Press one onto anything you own and your phone can always find it.

    Everything is inside it. Scroll into the full stop.

    Five hundred years of losing things, in fourteen paintings

    01 / 14The Departure

    Things leave

    Sunglasses. Keys. The bear they cannot sleep without. Everything you own is quietly trying to get away from you.

    Every pink thing in this painting has a Speck on it. Find the dot and dive in.

    02 / 14Sunday, 08:14

    Left behind

    Your phone tells you before the door has closed. You are still on the pavement, so you turn round.

    SunglassesLeft behind. Cafe table, by the door. 12 m from you. Walk back, or ring it.

    03 / 14Saturday night, one glove

    Found by strangers

    Far from you, any passing phone reports where it is. Nobody in this street knows they helped. Only you can read the answer.

    iPhone and Android, on both of their finding networks.

    04 / 14One street, printed on a sweatshirt

    It learns your day

    The app notices where your things live and when you carry them. Then it speaks only when something is out of place.

    • You left the cafe. Your sunglasses did not.
    • The school coat came home. The lunchbox did not.
    • You are leaving for a flight. Your passport is on the hallway shelf.

    05 / 14Twenty four of you

    Is this you

    • I have bought the same sunglasses three times.
    • My child comes home with one glove and no jumper.
    • My bag went to Lisbon. I went to Lagos.
    • The remote is in the sofa. It is always in the sofa.

    Everyone here has a pink dot on the thing they would hate to lose.

    06 / 14Twenty four things, one dot each

    Any surface

    Peel it off the card and press it on. That is the whole job, and there is nothing else to buy.

    Press
    Metal, glass, acetate, wood, leather
    Pin
    Coats, jumpers, bags, soft toys
    Loop
    Necklaces, laces, zips, straps

    07 / 14Four domes behind glass

    Hide it or show it

    A Speck comes in four finishes. Pick the one that vanishes into the thing, or the one that looks like it was always part of it.

    • Onyx
    • Gold
    • Steel
    • Clear

    The pink ones in these paintings are only pink so you can find them.

    08 / 14The garden of things that came home

    For small people

    Children lose things. And once in a while, for one long minute in a busy shop, you lose them.

    Pin a Speck inside a coat collar and your phone knows which aisle. A pinned Speck locks shut. It is not for children under three.

    09 / 14It took the punch

    Why it stays on

    A Speck weighs a twentieth of a gram and has no edge to catch. The pad cures hard instead of staying sticky.

    0.05 g
    What a Speck weighs
    3 kg
    What the cured bond holds
    60 times
    Margin when it hits a tiled floor

    10 / 14Morning, noon, night

    Half a year

    One cell runs a Speck for three to six months. The app warns you weeks ahead, and five spares come in the box.

    Twist
    The Speck opens
    Drop
    In goes a spare cell
    Twist
    Shut in half a minute, and it keeps its name

    11 / 14Everything you love, kept close

    Only yours

    Nobody else can read where your things are. Not the strangers whose phones helped, and not us.

    If a Speck that is not yours ever travels with you, your phone tells you and can make it ring. That alert is built into iPhone and Android.

    12 / 14The founder's ledger

    Four pairs

    Speck began after its founder lost four pairs of good sunglasses. One set costs less than any of them did.

    Pair five has a Speck on the temple. It is still here.

    13 / 14One of these is not paint

    How small

    Three millimetres. The tracker most people hang on their keys is 31.9 mm, more than ten times wider.

    Speck, a sticker tracker and an AirTag, at real size.

    14 / 14Sapphire, gold, steel

    Inside

    The dome is the aerial. The radio is two millimetres long. The whole design runs on a millionth of a watt, and a light cell under the dome pays some of it back.

    Open the engineering page

    It was in the full stop the whole time.

    Photograph of a set: five tiny black domes with gold rims on a cream card, with five spare cells, a sheet of clear pads, three locking pins, three loops and a small steel key

    A set of five

    • Five Specks in your finish
    • Five spare cells
    • Pads, pins and loops
    • The app, with no subscription
    • Pay nothing until it ships
    • Cancel whenever you like
    $79$15.80 a Speck Reserve a set

    Go back in through any painting