A Home Inventory App That Captures More Than an Inventory of 'Stuff'
We did say, "It's that time of year again." Many of us are making plans to get organized once and for all. We tell ourselves, "2023 is the year. Yes!" But are you setting yourself up by relying on old habits and processes that never worked before? Why would they work now?
Case in point: home inventory apps. Is that your tool of choice? Don’t get us wrong, we know inventory apps are critical across industries and even in private households. But they are unifunctional. These apps are administrative in orientation with not a whisper of fun or human connection. They support management and listing of large volumes of objects with hyper specific meta data fields so you can keep track of them and their value. In our opinion, that’s a lot of work for a very limited scope of value and use to you!
Let’s Review the Newcomer: Artifcts
Taking a page out of the book of publications you find online (like this one) that, for a fee, rank “best” tech apps and gadgets, here’s how we’d review Artifcts’ pros and cons compared to home inventory apps:
PROS:
- Modern and intuitive interface with multiple view style options
- Capture any object or collection with photo, video, and/or audio
- Use preset categories alongside custom tags to categorize according to your own preferences
- Track important documents, manuals, and more
- Includes built-in optional fields covering smart categories such as weight, dimensions, location, and even future intentions for the object
- Private by default but permissionable and shareable for individuals, groups, and even social media
- No file compression – your files are secure, private, and exactly as you created them
- Ad free, and you own your data. Download in a click in multiple formats!
CONS:
- Intended for personal use; not suited to business inventories. We did mention fun, right?
- Limited to five media files and three documents. Focus on what’s meaningful and interlink related Artifcts if you like with the @ feature.
- Beta features are released first to desktop. And usually released to mobile one week later; we want to ensure each feature meets your expectations.
- No barcode scanner. Got us here. Most 'stuff' people Artifct are too unique for barcodes!
We give Artifcts 4 stars as a home inventory app, but a full 5 stars a tech startup redefining "artifacts" to help transform 'stuff' from a burden to a source of connection, history, legacy, and financial security.
Where Artifcts and Home Inventory Apps Coexist
There exists an interesting opportunity for Artifcts and home inventory apps to work for you, together. How do we know? Members of the Arti Community have told us! Here are three recent examples. (Names are changed for privacy.) Let us know if you have others!
Meet Jeff. He’s spent several months cataloging his personal library using LibraryThing. He stepped back, proud of his work and realized, "Oh, but that one and that one and that one are uniquely special. They are gifts from people I admire, they are signed copies, I sought them out in off-the-beaten path shops." Essentially some of Jeff’s books are particularly valuable to him and maybe the world.
- At Artifcts ... Like Jeff, you can easily attach your inventory to an Artifct as a document, include a link to the inventoried book’s listing in the “location” field of your Artifct, or tag your Artifct #LibraryThing so you know which Artifcts exist in that app as well.
Meet Sandra. She hired a moving company that offers complementary digital inventory to ensure they know what she is moving and the condition of the items of particular value to her. Great!
- Sandra (and you!) can Artifct those objects and attach the mover’s inventory or cross reference it if it has as digital presence. And, if you like to keep track of items by room or location, simply tag your Artifcts #livingroom, #teddysbedroom, and #garage for easy future reference. Click the tag and all Artifcts with the same tag in your personal collection will appear. Now, that’s a nifty home inventory app.
Meet the Shroads Family. This family has traveled far and wide in the world and curated a valuable art collection along the way. They have a file with hardcopy receipts and related documentation as well as a running inventory in Excel that they update faithfully during tax season as part of their general estate management. But the details of the when and where and even the ‘why’ of specific pieces are becoming blurry and not everyone has access to these important supporting documents.
- Through Artifcts, the documents, the details of each person, and critically the ‘why’ of the moment of the purchase coexist. Now individuals can permission and reference these Artifcts in their planning documents and not worry about how to unite separate bits of information stored in different locations.
Happy Artifcting of those home inventories and beyond!
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