Milwaukee® Wins Chicago Innovation Award with ONE-KEY™ Bluetooth® Tracking Tag

We’re thrilled to announce that our improved tool & equipment tracker, the ONE-KEY™ Bluetooth® Tracking Tag, has been honored at the recent Chicago Innovation Awards.

Chicago Innovation Award Winners Announced

The annual Chicago Innovation Awards represent the Chicago region's foremost recognition of the most innovative new products or services brought to market each year. Of the 365 organizations that submitted innovations for this award program, only 20 are honored with the award.

Members of the One-Key team, as well as team members representing our engineering team from our new technology office in Chicago (who played an instrumental technical role in bringing this product to market), were in attendance at this ceremony.

ONE-KEY™ Bluetooth® Tracking Tag Product Recap: Award-Winning Equipment Tracker, Built in Chicago

The Internet of Things (IoT) is common worldwide, no longer the “next big thing,” though it has only recently started to make an impact on the construction industry. A recent study revealed companies’ losses from theft are between 300 million and 1 billion dollars annually. The Commercial Construction Index reported that 70% of contractors believe the ability to track materials and tools on the jobsite will improve productivity. The need to know where things are is of critical importance. Effective inventory tracking and management capabilities are necessary to prevent construction downtime and increase productivity.

As technology has disrupted the equipment tracking space, the features available in a Bluetooth Tag have greatly expanded. The recently announced, vastly improved One-Key Bluetooth Tracking Tag is worlds’ apart from the TICK™ Tool & Equipment Tracker that preceded it, released all the way back in 2017 on the One-Key network, when equipment tracking was far less sophisticated.  

Furthermore, the One-Key Bluetooth Tracking Tag, released last November, disrupts not only the construction technology landscape, but also, its embedded equipment tracking technology is useful across a wide variety of industries, bringing construction-grade durability to a multitude of applications.

The tracker allows users add any product to a digital inventory allowing them to track what matters most via computer, iPad, or smartphone. This Tag is the most complete Bluetooth tool and equipment tracker on the market, and it’s backed by our free-to-use One-Key app, the construction industry’s largest crowd-sourced Bluetooth tracking network. By leveraging the One-Key network and Bluetooth technology, the Tag provides accurate information on the last seen date, time, and location of a tool when within 300ft of any One-Key-enabled device, and offers additional key features that can help users manage their inventory. The One-Key app doesn’t only keep track of the asset’s last known location but also has a 30-day history of everywhere it has been seen by anyone in the One-Key tracking community.

Examples of noteworthy improvements include an accelerometer, offering the ability to see when an item was last used/moved; near-field communication and a heavy-duty external QR code for a faster 2-step activation process, to name just a few.

We’re thrilled that the judges of the Chicago Innovation Awards have recognized our new Bluetooth tracking tag.

New features:

• Improved 300-ft Bluetooth® range (3X times that of TICK™).
• Industry’s first onboard speaker in a Bluetooth tracker (with 3 buzzer sounds) users can ping when items are not physically visible.
• An onboard accelerometer providing greater contextual information about the last time your item was moved.
• Built-in near-field-communication (NFC) and a heavy duty QR code allow for easy 2-step scanning and activation.
• Compact design with 30% smaller footprint offers versatile attachment capabilities.
• Professional-grade durability and weather-proof construction built to withstand harsh jobsite conditions, abuse, shock, drop, and extreme temperatures not seen in consumer-grade trackers.
• IP68 rating, the most durable on the market, and a 3-year battery life allowing users to avoid unnecessary battery changes that can compromise a unit’s durability rating.
• It can be used anywhere! While the Tag was designed for jobsites, its durability and performance have made it the choice for tracking other various objects such as farm equipment, home goods, and even cattle.

Featured Product Support Articles   

• Learn how to Setup a Bluetooth Tracking Tag on Android  
• Learn how to Setup a Bluetooth Tracking Tag on iOS
• See our Tips for Attaching a Bluetooth Tracking Tag 
• Learn how to setup a geofence on Android, iOS, and Web 
• Learn how to use the last-100ft tracking experience proximity tool 
• Learn how to get a  30-day history to see where your tag has been over a 30-day period
• Additional reading: Tracking Tag vs Asset ID Tag vs TICK™: What’s the Difference?
  

General guidelines to improve tool tracking:  

• One-Key leads the industry with the largest community Bluetooth tracking network. However, as a community Bluetooth tracking application, in order to see more location updates, the more users in the app within your area, the better. You can improve your experience in the app (particularly on remote jobsites) by ensuring everyone on the job is in the app. Learn about Bluetooth vs GPS tracking.
• Ensure location services and Bluetooth permissions on your device are enabled (location allows us to triangulate where your tools are located in relation to you and provide location updates, and Bluetooth allows for you to be able to scan for nearby devices). Learn how on Android and iOS.