Sock Tracker

Missing socks: Where do they go?

EDIT: 1/1/2021: Many socks are lost. This experiment is over.

I put NFC tags on my socks and used a combination of iOS shortcuts, Google Cloud Functions, AirTable, and Javascript to build a custom tool to answer life’s biggest question: Where do lost socks go? I thought it's most likely socks are lost in the transitions between being worn, being washed, and stored. So, every time a sock moved through a step of the sock lifecycle, I tapped it to my phone and logged its status as ON FOOT, IN HAMPER, IN WASHER, IN SOCK DRAWER. The data strongly suggested socks are lost between ON FOOT and IN HAMPER, as there were many times I took my socks off and simply did not know where/when I did that.