I’ve long speculated that a better way to use geofencing is to make use of bluetooth chip to tell your phone where you actually are. Turns out, someone else makes the hardware already. Here’s what David Edwin emailed to tell me about the product:

>Nordic Semiconductor has introduced a new Bluetooth low energy chip, the nRF8002 which is a single chip and can be configured to last for years on a single watch battery. The size of the chip and battery is 3 dimes stacked on top of each other. This chip implements a proximity service and does not require any programming on the chip.

>This chip with its battery (like a tag) can be stuck on a surface and the app on the iPhone can wirelessly detect the chip from a distance of a few inches or upto 15 yards. The tag can be built to have a range of a few inches or 10 yards or mode. The app on the iphone can detect the presence of the chip in a couple of seconds. See attached pictures for the size of the tag.

That’s pretty cool. Edwin also said that he wants to arrange a couple free development kits for developers that read this blog, so get in touch if you would like to get one of those the giveaways are all gone, but you can buy a dev kit [here](http://www.semiconductorstore.com/cart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=47363).