Smart suitcases are coming and they plan to make our travels comfortable, and our airport hassles minimized as well

Everything is becoming smart these days, it started with the smartphone revolution; we saw smart cars and are now witnessing a smart home takeover. This time around your luggage plans to grab the title of being smart. Meet Samsung’s and Samsonite’s joint collaboration in the smart suitcases department. Both the companies are working to create luggage that is smart enough to tell where it is and more.

Nobody likes lost luggage and most travelers have gone through the nightmare of airlines misplacing passenger suitcases and as a result, stranding them in a foreign country without their bare essentials. It can be frustrating and is not a pleasant experience. Daily Mail reports that the joint effort currently utilizes GPS to track the luggage and identify the user of its location.

The luggage will even be able to alert a passenger, when it has been opened and whether it has been tampered with or not. Alerts will also be sent out, when an owner moves further away from the baggage. There is no retail availability announced for this smart luggage and are still in trial phases.

Samsonite is also working on a prototype of self-propelling luggage, which has an engine and follows its owner six inches behind. Gone are the worries of carting luggage through the bustle of an airport. The current models take up a third of the baggage space and this also means an additional 20kgs, and thus, not a very viable option.

Another likely possibility in the smart suitcase category is the luggage that checks-in itself at an airport without the owner worrying about it. Emirates, KLM Air France, and Lufthansa are already on board with Samsonite on this project. The luggage will contain a chip, which will identify its owner at the airport and will be programmed with an airline’s details, destination, and time. All an owner needs is to drop the bag at the carousel. It will be weighed and the details along with a unique code for the bag will be sent to a user on the mobile device.

The technology will be bogged down by compatibility issues, of airlines not supporting this tech, security issues on airports, and airlines refusing to let users connect with their baggage. This is not the first foray in to the connected baggage area and Bluesmart, an indiegogo project, raised funds to be the world’s first connected carry-on and has features such as remote unlocking, location tracking, proximity notification, and a built-in scale inside the bag.