RFID Home Robot Reminder: Wicked Cute, But is it Practical?

Thanks to Gizmodo for this short feature.

...robot acts as a personal assistant that keeps tabs on the things you take with you in the morning. You can tag your essentials like wallet, keys, cellphone, etc. with tiny RFID tags which provide communication range of a few inches... It will check for the tagged items once you bring your bag close to the reader. In case anything is missing the Robot will alert you by saying “You forgot the keys,” and so on.

Maybe it's something I should get here at home for my mother-in-law. A wonderful woman, she nevertheless has got a bit of the bag lady syndrome going on. When she visits, her stuff gets strewn all over the house... her cell phone here, car keys there, her wallet in a plastic bag with two elastics around it and then there's her dog, too.

After she leaves we all resume what we were doing before she came. Then after about 55 minutes one of us makes sure we're near the phone because it takes 'Mom' about an hour to get home.

"Did I leave my cell phone there?"
"Are my glasses on the counter?"
"Have you seen my dog?"
OK, I'm kidding about the dog part. I don't think my mother-in-law could actually drive a car without the help of her dog on her lap. You've seen my mother-in-law driving around haven't you!