How OneID works
A tag identifies something. Somebody reads it. You find out. Everything else on this page is detail around those three things.
Step by step
From nothing to a working tag
- 1
Create an identity
An identity is the record of a thing — a pet, a vehicle, a bag, a card, a piece of equipment. You give it a name and the details that matter for its kind. Nothing is public yet.
- 2
Attach an identifier
A QR sticker, an NFC tag or a digital link becomes the way people reach that identity. One identity can carry several — a tag on the collar and a card in the wallet point at the same record.
- 3
Choose what a stranger sees
You decide field by field. A finder might see a first name and a "message the owner" button, and nothing else. What you keep private is never sent to the page they open.
- 4
Put it on the thing
Stick it, clip it, or share the link. From that point the tag works whether or not you are holding your phone, and whether or not the finder has ever heard of us.
- 5
Somebody scans it
They point a camera at it or tap it against their phone. A web page opens. No app to install, no account to create, nothing to sign up for — which is the only reason a stranger actually helps.
- 6
You hear about it
The scan reaches you through the channels you have turned on. If the first one goes unanswered the platform escalates to the next, and stops as soon as you acknowledge.
Identifiers
QR and NFC do the same job differently
Both point at the same identity. Which you use is about the object and the person reading it.
QR
Read by any phone camera, from a distance, through a window, off a printed sticker that costs almost nothing. Works on every phone made in the last decade without the reader knowing what it is.
NFC
Tapped rather than aimed, which is quicker and works in the dark. Needs a phone with NFC enabled, so it suits cards handed to somebody deliberately more than a tag a stranger finds.
The important distinction
Identification is not tracking
These are two different capabilities. Most of what we make is the first.
A tag is read when somebody reads it
A QR or NFC tag has no battery, no radio of its own and no idea where it is. It does nothing at all until a person decides to scan it. The platform learns that a scan happened — and, only if the finder chooses to share it, roughly where they were standing.
That is the honest description of most of this range. It is not live location, and a tag on a stolen bike will tell you nothing until somebody picks it up and looks.
A tracker reports on its own
A tracking device has power and a radio, and sends its position without anybody doing anything. That is a different product, with different battery life, different cost and different privacy consequences — and it is the only way to answer “where is it right now”.
Where a tracker is fitted, the platform shows its position and can alert you when it enters or leaves an area you have drawn.
Geofences apply to tracked things only.
Tracking hardware is not shipping yet
BLE and GPS trackers are in development and are marked as such wherever they appear. Everything else on this site works by being scanned.