Sometimes a gadget comes along and despite my schedule, I find myself so intrigued that I jump in with both feet to review it personally. Such was the case with the fabulous Blue nio™ by Tenbu Technologies.

I don’t know what phone you have and whether you use it as an army to organise and carry most of your life but that is somewhat how I treat my Blackberry. It is loaded with precious photographs, a couple of Mum & Dad unfriendly video’s, a HUGE contacts database, Gigabytes of music and so on the list goes. Let us just say I’ve made good use of my 8GB memory card and am thinking of upgrading to 16GB!
In the process, I have become a little paranoid about its loss, to understate matters – I’ll get that comment in before one of the team pops onto the blog to tease me about this. I do the Commuter Hell trip, transferring daily  through two of the busiest stations in London, in the middle of the Rush Hour. It quite often feels like Londons entire population are barging me, brushing passed me, standing just a little too close and restlessly for comfort etc. In return I suspect I look like someone with a severe nervous disorder as I routinely check my coat and bag to ensure all is still secure.
When I’m not commuting, working or sat in front of a PC I am invariably out socialising and again that nervous tick kicks in.
It’s quite exhausting, this underlying sense of stress!

Then about two weeks ago I blogged about the nio™ and voila, most kindly one arrived in the post for us to trial directly. At the time I blogged that this had the potential of being a very real (and as it transpires, very affordable) 007 gadget. Having spent the last couple of days putting it through its paces, I am delighted to say that it has more than lived up to expectations.

So what the blazes is it?

The nio™ is a small black Bluetooth fob (think key fob) that you can link to an ever increasing vast range of other Bluetooth enabled phones – cue my Blackberry (Full list of applicable devices listed here – and more are being added)
On receiving the nio™, I merely had to charge it up, download via a link providing the application for my Blackberry, which by the way only took seconds, and link the two devices just as you would when pairing any two Bluetooth gadgets. You’ll be pleased to know that that Bluetooth link is also coded for added security.
Once this is done – it even turns your phones Bluetooth on for you! – the fun then starts.
You set a “risk level” – so for rush hour my risk level is obviously “High Risk” and should the nio™ fob and phone become parted beyond a certain distance this fabulous alarm sounds on your phone and simultaneously from the fob. The alarm made me jump and grin and I was expecting it. A vibrant blue light also flashes from the fob. You can even set it to vibrate. Better yet you can set a motion sensor (eg. when leaving your phone on a desk) However the fun doesn’t stop there as you can schedule the times for your Risk Levels think Commute Hell, as mentioned above.
All of these settings are completed through a clear and remarkably simple interface on your mobile.

There’s still more as you can use the locator function which allows for a different tone so you can find misplaced tagged items.
The application, once installed on your device, allows for multiple nio™ tags and each one to be individually named – you can even add images of the item.
Have I mentioned the rechargeable battery that allows this gadget to function for several weeks – long enough to cover a standard holiday and then some? Well, it has that too.

Think I’m smitten?
Damn right I am!

The grand finale for me though was the price. Having trialled other somewhat similar devices of one facet or another (none of them to date have had ALL of nio’s capabilities) I was expecting this gadget to be somewhere above an RRP £80. It’s nowhere near – in fact you can halve that price and have one of these gems all to yourself.

My only two ‘hmm’ moments with this gadget is that it is a teeny bit bulky. Almost half the size of a packet of Lockets it’s a big-ish key fob (it would ruin the line of 007s dinner trousers or your evening dress) and ... damn it, they didn’t provide a paperclip to push in the mandatory reset button to activate it for pairing. A pen nib will not do the trick. Am I splitting hairs? Yes because everything and anything can surely be improved upon ;-)

However, the bottom line is would I buy it and do I think, paranoia about losing my Blackberry aside, that it’s good value for money? Absolutely! 9/10

A video explaining how nio™ works is available here.

For more details see www.bluenio.com where they are available to buy online for £39.95

PS. Keep an eye on these guys – there’s more to come and if they can walk their talk all over again, nio™ is going to be a very familiar word in the World of gadgets and security. If a few companies have their wits about them (not to forget absent minded government departments who seem to excel at leaving briefcases, disks etc lying around) they will be buying the nio™ in bulk for their staff.