Nut Find 3 versus MYNT bluetooth tracker review and showdown
Tags :product review MYNT Nut Find bluetooth tracker
Bluetooth tracker devices are becoming a crowded and competitive space. I have been able to review numerous trackers (eight and counting) and finally see what areas will decide the winner to my needs. The clear winner will have an application with the most features coupled against the simplest interface. Then toss in two way tracker capability that has a long and changeable battery.
For this showdown I was able to compare the Nut Find 3 and Mynt. While Nut is on the third version (plus has a min version), Mynt has come out of the gates thinking ahead of the competition in any way they could. I made sure to update the applications to the very last day before finalizing the review to account for any crashes or issues.
Let me throw this out there now. To run this test I had a few choices:
- I could lowjack a kid and see how it worked
- I could take my life in my hands and try and lowjack my cat (skilled ninja)
- I could walk the devices far away, come back to the phones and try that way
- I could attach it to a drone and fly it around in different directions and distances
Presuming I would get in trouble for choice 1, injured in choice 2 and too lazy for choice 3, the final one made the most sense. Plus it let me play with multiple technologies at once.
Nut Find 3
The Nut Find 3 comes in 4 colors (peach white, green tea, pink orange and cherry gray) which the names of immediately confused me. The look was like many other Bluetooth trackers with the rounded corner square that is about 7.2mm thick (1.5" square and 0.28" thick for comparison needs to MYNT). The textured top, just like a walnut, did have it stand out.
The battery in the Nut Find 3 is a CR2032 with replacements readily available everywhere. I love the fact they allow you to change batteries when needed. Some vendors choose to make you buy a new device, but the recent trend is replaceable batteries inside the devices. Nut gives the estimated battery life at around 8 months to one year of normal usage.
You can easily download the Nut application in the AppStore and Google Play. Once launched, Nut assigns you a random Username that is easily changed. My first name was User611477. A few clicks and that was easily set. It also forces you to pick a gender. I do not think that is necessary at all for the service or the application.
Inside of the application there are quite a few features. One of them is the Add Friends. This allows you to add someone by phone number or email address. This prompts them to download the Nut application for their device. You can also add a new Nut device by placing it close to the phone or scanning the QR code that comes with it. Both will add the new hardware to your application and bind it to you as a user. This is important for lost Nuts or moving a Nut Find to a new device that I cover a little later. We had issues adding the Nut Find with the QR code since the code was so lightly printed on the package it seemed. Scanning to find it worked right away though.
So the application and website make the whole My Friends thing very unclear. Why would I want friends? What use is it to me? The crowd location ability for a lost Nut has nothing to do with who is your friend. So what good is it? Surprisingly, even the Nut website had nothing to offer. I mention their lack of a good online or in app resource below. So guess where I found a screenshot and the best explanation for what having friends does? On their app page for iTunes. Apparently, the friends capability allows you to see where they are in real time (or their Nut device is).
Silent Modes are a winner for any Bluetooth tracker and Nut includes this in their application. You can establish silent regions around Home, Work and Other. This region is wifi controlled meaning as long as your device and Nut are in the same wifi zone you will not get alerts. This is awesome since most of us move around the house or office with our phone and may leave our keys in a drawer or desk. You can always push the locate ability inside the zones if something you attached the Nut to gets misplaced. But in general, proximity alerts are disabled.
Notifications are in a weird UI place inside of the application to me. Under the More menu in the bottom right you have this nice scrolling list of things Most are help, user stories and unnecessary things that could be put into sub menus. But notifications is in the upper right as an envelope (and a very light gray one on white background) and only accessible there. I would expect this to show on other screens for sure. Notifications usually require attention or action. Why they placed it there baffled me.
I lost my Nut Find 3, now what?
When your Nut is disconnected, you can use “Declare Lost” for the Nut Network to help you find your Nut. All the Nut App users can help you search for your Nut after you declare lost. Another note to make is around the result of a lost Nut. If you want to ever unpair or disconnect a Nut Find from your device it needs to be in connected mode first, then you remove it. This allows you to transfer it to someone else. However, it if gets lost or your force disconnect it then the Nut Find 3 is locked until connected to the original account. This means, basically, someone cannot steal your Nut. (inset any pun here you wish).
One thing I did not like is the lack of an extended (and easy to find) FAQ or support on the Nut website. I would anticipate many would want a step-by-step guide to many features along with a long Q&A of common questions. Heck there is only a standard contact form and not even a link to support on the main pages. Creating an account on their website only allowed me to see orders. Not work with my device or anything more that was helpful. Even the app only has user stories and feedback. No help link was found there either.
MYNT
MYNT declares itself a stylish and sleek design winner right out of the box. Even though it comes in four colors (at the time of this review), it has an immediate impact when you slide the clear package out from the liner. It is 2" long x 1" wide and only .125" thick (50.8mm x 25.4mm and 3.175mm thick for Nut Find 3 comparison purposes) in an elliptical shape allowing you to easily slip this into pockets and bags. I would not hang this on a pet due to the length though.
I was able to get my hands on the stainless steel look with an additional plastic case. The look of the black, gold and blue were just as clean from the online pictures. It also comes with a small lanyard to allow you to hang this onto just about anything. Also are some double sided sticky pads to let you adhere MYNT to some items.
The battery in the MYNT is a CR2020, and one additional is included in the package. I love the fact they allow you to change batteries when needed. Some vendors choose to make you buy a new device, but the recent trend is replaceable batteries. MYNT even brands a 5 pack of the batteries you can buy. I would suggest for batteries shop around. I found 10 packs equal to the price they were charging for 5. I hope they start to match prices since I already have the device. Batteries are not their market, tracker experience is.
The MYNT application is available for both Android and iOS. It was simple to find via searches or you can scan the QR code they include with the packaging. I honestly found it easier to just type MYNT into the AppStore and Google Play. If you plan on using MYNT for tracking (and not just as an application extension we talk about below) the app should be allowed to run in the background. They have a good help screen online showing how that is accomplished. I should not have to mention it but you need to have Bluetooth turned on your device too. Location settings should also be accessible if you want to do things like parking reminders and last seen using a GPS type map. The icon for the app will be gray if it the device is not connected as a great visual indicator.
The MYNT device has a control button and remote circuit included making it compatible with many applications including the camera. This allows you to click the MYNT and activate the shutter, change slides in presentations and more depending on the application. Note that MYNT can only be paired with one device at a time. So you cannot have it work with a Mac computer and an iPhone at the same time or even two phones at once for example. In reverse a single MYNT application can keep track of up to 8 devices at once. They have reported future plans of 12 devices.
One cool feature that many Bluetooth trackers are implementing is cloud and community location. This means that if I go in and mark my MYNT as lost, the next time anyone in the MYNT community walks by with their app running, my lost tracker will be picked up on Bluetooth and the app will shoot that location to the cloud and let me know where it was seen. They do not know they saw it nor do I know who saw it. This is a and cool way to find lost items.
So the MYNT touts itself as waterproof (well really they say IP43 rating) when using the included sleeve I put in the above picture. By itself it is safe for the rain or a moist environment according to the documentation. In no possible way was going to test that fact and ruin the device. I am not exactly sure how the sleeve allows you to even swim with the MYNT since, in my opinion, it still has openings and the ability for water to easily get in. I would click the link above on IP ratings. I learned quite a bit and now fully understand how the ratings work. This device is splash proof according to ratings they promote. even with the case I do not see it being full waterproof like an IP48 rating.
Our Chosen Winner
It was pretty clear after a short time of using both devices that MYNT was our favorite. The stylish look and the multiple functions make it stand out. While both offered many of the same features, the extras from MYNT give it quite the advantage. See the video at the beginning for the unboxing, tearing through the applications and more commentary.
You can get MYNT and accessories and the Nut Find 3 both on Amazon (yes that is an affiliate link)
Thanks to Xberts and making me a Xberts Pioneer to get access to these for review. Please see all the product reviews here on the IdoNotes blog and subscribe to the SpikedStudio channel or product review playlist on YouTube
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On Wednesday, September 7th, 2016 by Chris Miller
