An expensive luggage scale.
The smart suitcase Digitrak has everything to make any traveler drool: it includes a luggage scale, an extra battery to recharge your devices, and most importantly, a GPS. The big problem is that when you’ve paid $650, the GPS doesn’t work.
We like
The Digitrak, from Swissdigital Design, is first and foremost a beautiful gray and red suitcase, made of rigid plastic and mounted on four wheels, with a telescopic handle for easy transportation. It is 17.3 inches wide and 26 inches high, giving an impression of sturdiness and good craftsmanship.
On the top, there is a red leather strap and two small buttons. This is the luggage scale. By lifting the suitcase with the strap, you get the total weight, suitcase and contents, in pounds or kilograms. We compared its reading, after filling it with books, with that of our other scale. The two devices diverged by 0.8 pounds, which is reasonable. The manual promises an accuracy of 500 grams.
To close the suitcase, there are two configurable number locks. You need to open them and, inside, change the position of a small lever and set the three digits of your choice.
By pulling the handle of the suitcase upwards, you can access the more technological part. This is where a removable battery is embedded, which has two ports, USB-A and microUSB. With these ports, you can either charge the battery or connect a device such as a phone, headphones, or tablet to charge it. This removable battery has a capacity of 5200 mAh, roughly equivalent to a full phone charge. It also powers another hidden rechargeable battery with a capacity of 800 mAh, which is meant for cellular connection and has a battery life of three or four days.
So far, everything is functional. Next, you need to pair the suitcase with your phone by downloading the R-Guardian app and scanning a QR code. By pressing a small button next to the battery for two seconds, the suitcase is detected by your phone.
The R-Guardian app consists of five buttons at the bottom of the screen. You can set up alerts when the suitcase is no longer connected via Bluetooth or check the battery level. The most important button is for location tracking. Here, you can see your suitcase in two conditions. When you remove the battery, which is required before boarding a plane according to the manual, the Bluetooth connection is lost and the cellular signal takes over. The suitcase appears on your map with a “disappearance time” indicating when the battery was removed. It should then reappear by sending its geolocation via cellular signal.
Upon purchase, you get three months of free cellular connection. After that, you need to pay around $1 per month for packages ranging from 3 to 24 months, using Alipay or PayPal.
We like less
Let’s start with the first setback: the QR code to download the R-Guardian application sends us to a Chinese website. Fortunately, we found it in the App Store with a simple search.
The user manual instructions are very unclear and the application is poorly done.
But it is the failure of geolocation that is unforgivable. We spent a whole morning testing its capabilities throughout Montreal, sometimes with its battery, sometimes without it, leaving the suitcase far from us, then picking it up again. Let’s summarize: the only thing that works properly is the geolocation when we remove the battery. We can then clearly see on the map where this disconnection occurred, information obtained from the phone to which it was connected.
Without its main removable battery, the suitcase never indicated its geolocation, even after an hour’s delay. And our free three-month cellular plan was active, we made sure of that on the R-Guardian application.
Defective unit? Battery that won’t charge? Activated cellular plan, but not functional? Impossible to know, and our app gave us no clues. We obviously didn’t try it during a trip abroad. Maybe we would have had more success.
Should you buy it?
It would not be uninteresting, for half or a third of this price, to have a suitcase that can weigh itself and whose lock codes can be changed.
But a $650 suitcase whose main attraction, geolocation and cellular communication, does not work? No. Too bad, the idea is good.
DIGITRAK
Manufacturer: Swissdigital Design
Price: $649.99
Rating: 3 out of 10
