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1P_MattG
1Password Employee
October 16, 2023
Question

Experiment #3 - Nearby Items

  • October 16, 2023
  • 88 replies
  • 11049 views

Hi y'all!

I can't believe we are already shipping Experiment 3?! This one has a very special place in my heart. This project actually came out of a Hackday we did internally. Everyone was SOOOO excited about it, we wanted to share it with our users to get your feedback.

Nearby Items allows you to assign a location to an item. Then, on mobile only for now, we've added a section to the home tab that shows you items that are close to you physically. Pretty awesome, right?

The basic hypothesis here is that because people are more and more mobile, the items you need quick access to might be different based on where you are in the world. If your building at work has a door code, we'll show you that when you pull up. If you've got a storage shed, we'll show you the combo to the lock when you arrive.

This experiment is our first exploration into physical space. We know we're not "done" but wanted to get early feedback to help shape how this project evolves from here.

We're eager to hear your thoughts on Nearby Items. Let us know what you think below in this thread.

The primary questions I'm trying to answer are:

  1. Does adding a location to an item help you get things done faster and with less friction? Do you see value in continuing to explore physical locations for items in any form?

  2. What are the use cases where you think having an item's physical location would be valuable? We have some ideas, but I'm sure there are tons of things we aren't even thinking about.

  3. This is a v1. If we continue to work on Nearby Items, what should we add, change, or modify to make it more valuable to you as a user?

  4. Does it make sense to also show "nearby items" on Desktop computers?

  5. Do you think that the current form of Nearby Items is good enough to ship in the Stable product?

88 replies

Doodler_Benji
1Password Employee
January 10, 2024

Love these follow up scenarios @snowy!
Thank you

1P_MattG
1P_MattGAuthor
1Password Employee
January 11, 2024

@snowy I think we can cover all of those with our current plans. For the Bank accounts, do you use multiple branches? I think that's a really strong justification for the ability to add more than one location to an item.

January 11, 2024

Yes I predominantly use 2 different branches.

ag_andrew
1Password Employee
January 16, 2024

Hey folks 👋

The feedback has been amazing, please keep it coming! One of the things we've been asked is for the option to use something other than meters as a unit of measurement. This is a great suggestion and I wanted give you an idea of what we're thinking so you could let us know if it would be a good fit for you.

Option Home Screen

What do you think?

XIII
January 16, 2024

Feet and Meters both suggest an accuracy that GPS can't give (you posted that earlier).

Therefore, I'd rather see you solve that (not GPS itself of course, but a way to handle its lack of precision in 1Password) before introducing extra options.

Doodler_Benji
1Password Employee
January 17, 2024

Cheers @XIII, I appreciate your perspective here.
I think it might be worth touching upon how this addition is to address inclusivity and how folks relate to the data displayed and it being as familiar as we can to them - instead of looking to provide misjudgement of the true distance even if it would be an approximate.

You raise a very interesting point, perhaps we turn our attention towards the 'nearby' instead of the 'how close'.

Thanks again,

January 25, 2024

Howdy everyone! I’m late to this party and am arriving to provide my NUX on this feature.

Without any context, the naming & verbiage made me think this was basically an alternative to (or a complement to) Apple Find My.

Even though I’m an 8-year user of 1PW, it never occurred to me that y’all use the word “Items” to broadly (but properly) describe every kind of entry.

“No items found nearby” as the default text & interface gave me a startle, because it was as if my Find My Items had all gone missing.

“Add a location to items and they’ll show up when you’re nearby” again, read to me like I was somehow tagging a physical item in the world and then it would be prominently displayed when I was close to it (a car, front door lock, NFC tag, etc…)

“Edit an item to assign it a location. View nearby items in 1Password for iOS and Android” again, read to me like I was adding a location to a physical item that could be tracked or seen using a mobile device.

No doubt that this is predominantly attributed to me:
* having the wrong impression stuck in my head
* using Apple AirTags on everything I’d hate to lose forever
* the ambiguity of the word “Item”
* my not registering how bonafide “Item” is in 1PW

I don’t mean to imply that I any major changes are necessary, and I appreciate the opportunity to engage with all y’all and how attentive to details your team has always been, and thought my confusion might be insightful. 💕

(The only improvement I can imagine that may have redirected my misconception early on, is a mock-up or visual representation of what the GUI in the app looks like: like hey that’s an interface I’m familiar with and oh ah yeah I see I see 🤣)

As for what Nearby Items actually is 😅 I tend to agree with others in this thread that the final form of this feature will be really smart entries that “just know” when to be useful:

  • debit/credit cards ready when I’m a meter away from an ATM
  • insurance cards when I’m at the dentist
  • identity info when I’m at a hospital or school
  • addresses when I’m at a post office
  • key codes for smart locks at friends houses if I’m checking in while they’re on holiday
  • or the inverse: sharing a PIN code to my garage door to someone who needs temporary access (would come with some smart meta data baked in, like a photo of what exactly to look for)

But up until now, the concept of bridging 1Password entries with physical locations is friction I’d never experienced a single time. “If only this entry knew I was here already” has never happened that I can remember anyways, so my use-cases are all imaginary right now, but I’ll give it a try & be back here if I have any ideas. 🧐

Doodler_Benji
1Password Employee
January 25, 2024

Thanks @johnjamesjacoby, theres great insight here!

Your feedback about the item terminology has sparked my interest and I would love to know more here, is there another term that has been resonating with you for a collective of mixed items within your 1Password? This is certainly something that now you've mentioned has got me wondering if others may have been thinking and its worth exploring.

“Add a location to items and they’ll show up when you’re nearby” again, read to me like I was somehow tagging a physical item in the world and then it would be prominently displayed when I was close to it (a car, front door lock, NFC tag, etc…)

This is the premise, however there is no 'automatic' context where perhaps your using a tracking device like an AirTag/NFC and those locations being updated. Perhaps we may do well here to communicate this a little more clearly - however - we would love for this to become a method of being able to link your real-world objects with their digital 1Password stored counterparts. You're setting a location on a map / using gps to set the coords and when your device is in radius you've chosen in app - it will be shown in the home tile, sorted by the closest distance first.

(The only improvement I can imagine that may have redirected my misconception early on, is a mock-up or visual representation of what the GUI in the app looks like: like hey that’s an interface I’m familiar with and oh ah yeah I see I see 🤣)

Thank you for this suggestion, I can absolutely appreciate and visualise where you're coming from thanks to how you've carefully crafted your feedback. Thank you for this, this is great advice and its noted for future updates.

January 25, 2024

"Google Maps" (Android)? What does this Boolean setting do/enable?

Apologies for the dumb question! A search returned no hits on 1password.community.

January 25, 2024

@JefeBato it represents their asking for user permission to interface with the Maps apps.

They did this their own way because neither of the native map apps (in iOS nor Android) have their own GUI for that specific allowance. They both DO have a privacy setting for tracking, but the Maps apps are fully open and permission is not “required”. The 1PW team is going the extra mile here. 💕

With it unchecked to off, when you attempt to add a location to an Item it looks like this: