Best BLE beacon tag for keys

The problem I’m trying to solve: I want to know when the car keys have been placed in the key bowl just so we know they’ve not been left in the front door whilst we’re in a rush entering the house (it’s happened before and it wasn’t me…)

Luckily the key bowl is no way near the front door and is more or less next to my home server which has a bluetooth adapter. If I’m understanding the difference between bluetooth tags correctly I need to specifically look for a BLE Beacon tag as they can be passively scanned and in turn maintain long battery life - vs a constant connection from the really cheap tags. I can then either use something like room assistant to track signal strength or perhaps the built in bluetooth integration. It should be noticeable by strength if it’s nearby.

Does anyone have any suggestions in the UK for a nice small BLE tag that would suit here? Could I possibly use one of the new Moto ones for this idea?

I use a Tile tag on my keys, but it may be bigger than you want.

The ones with non-replaceable batteries are supposed to last three years. The ones with replaceable batteries have a battery life of 1 year - although I’ve had mine for at least two and haven’t changed it yet.

As far as tracking in the house goes, Bermuda is pretty good.

Thanks, ideally I’m looking for battery replaceable and as small as possible but good to know about the tile ones working. They’re not massive but I would prefer slightly smaller if possible - I guess the smallest ones tend to skip the key clip hole so would then need a bulky case anyway.

No problems tracking the tile ones with randomised MAC addresses or anything? I know that’s a problem with airtags and my existing Samsung smart tag v1.

No, plain MAC address.

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I have a few different beacons from Feasycom. On my key rings I have FSC-BP108B which are 48 x 37 x 7.8mm and have a replaceable battery. They make a smaller one (36 x 23.2 x 3.6 mm ) that I haven’t tried yet, FSC-BP106. The datasheet of the smaller one says it takes a CR2025, but I haven’t seen any listing for them that says it is replaceable. It may be that, in order to be so thin and maintain the IP67 rating, it has been sealed in such a way that replacing the battery would completely destroy the case.

Thanks for the info, sadly they both appear to be US only though. I’m in the UK, so ideally a main brand one that’s sold here would be perfect!

How about this one Clip Universal – Pebblebee seems to be available in the UK.

That does look great to be fair, rechargeable! £43 shipped though… Does anyone know if the Chipolo tags would work? They seem to be a reasonable shape/size/price.

What’s wrong with just a cheap generic NRF51822 based beacon?

etc.

The top two are absolute units and need to be made even bigger when you attach a keyring hole of sorts! Bottom one seems okay but still doesn’t look ideal.