Geek Not Nerd

March 26, 2008 (Gizmag)

It’s an ingenious self-activating miniature bouy on a keyring and after several years of difficulties reaching market, the Seatriever Waterbuoy is now available and seeking international distribution. The UKP13 (US$26) Waterbuoy is the first product in a family of automatic floatation devices that will recover your mobile phone, keys, GPS receiver, PDA, binoculars, VHF radio or anything else that drops overboard.

Waterbuoy is a safety device for anything portable on your boat. It may only be the same size as a regular car key fob (70mm x 28mm x 18mm), but Waterbuoy packs some ingenious miniature flotation technology to stop precious objects from sinking to the bottom. When dropped into the water, Waterbuoy becomes a flashing emergency float for whatever it is attached to, making it possible to retrieve just about anything that you accidentally drop into the water.

“Waterbuoy is a unique product. It will lift up to 1kilogram back to the surface, it will stay afloat for at least 24 hours and it has an emergency flashing light that makes it visible from up to 250 meters away in the dark, so you can even get your valuables back at night,” explains James Halliburton, CEO of Seatriever International. “Waterbuoy is the world’s first and only high-tech solution to the most infuriating accident that can happen on the water.”

Waterbuoy’s operation is ingenious. Seconds after falling into the sea, canal, marina, lake or river, water passes into the body of the fob dissolving a patented automatic actuator that releases gas from a tiny tank into a bright orange balloon. The balloon breaks out of the end of the fob and continues to inflate. Simultaneously, a bright LED starts flashing which illuminates Waterbuoy from the inside like a Belisha beacon. The toughened balloon inflates to the size of a melon making it very easy to grab one-handed or retrieve with a boathook without fear of it bursting.