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Lost-and-Found Bluetooth Accessory 'Tile' Passes $1 Million in Pre-Orders

I want to have a wrist band or necklace and then I put small stickers on items that I want to keep track of. When they get out of a certain specified range from the wrist band/necklace it should alert me – by a buzz and/or light and/or vibration.

When this kind of product gets released I think it will be a sucess. 🙂

Although this seems like a pretty good start. Would be even better if the battery in the tile was replaceable.
 
Why do these (or any) type of devices need a romantic 'click' in the video?

"... Hey I just bought a plastic square that will tell me where my car keys are. When I walk past you in the hallway today, I make intimate eye contact 🙂. I couldn't have done that without 'tile' "
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
Only works with iOS. Chances of it being in range of someone else with the Tile app if your device gets stolen are almost non-existant.

There are a number of products out there already just like this for much less and that have a much smaller footprint so you can place them inside devices like laptops.
Click to expand...

That iOS only part is the part that kills any chance of me touching it. Also their excuse is crap and wrong. Android 4.2 supports Bluetooth 4.0 in it. They just would have to make that part clear.
 
NStocks said:
Why do these (or any) type of devices need a romantic 'click' in the video?

"... Hey I just bought a plastic square that will tell me where my car keys are. When I walk past you in the hallway today, I make intimate eye contact 🙂. I couldn't have done that without 'tile' "
Click to expand...

Funny, until that guy showed up again in the video, I forgot that we saw him earlier and the implication was that he was about to steal her purse.
 
with a tiny solar cell integrated into it, even an inefficient and cheap one, and it would prob cost $1 more and last for 10 years instead...lame
 
MegamanX said:
That iOS only part is the part that kills any chance of me touching it. Also their excuse is crap and wrong. Android 4.2 supports Bluetooth 4.0 in it. They just would have to make that part clear.
Click to expand...

Not quite - stock Android 4.2 doesn't actually support the Bluetooth 4.0 stack yet, but some devices running 4.2 come with hardware support that currently is not active. An exception is the Nexus 4, which ships with Bluetooth 4.0 software support enabled.

Android 4.3 will be adding support for Bluetooth 4.0, though.
 
I'm somewhat stumped at all the hate towards the price tag and the "planned obsolescence."

It's not planned obsolescence if you adjust your mindset that this is a deliberately disposable device that can be recycled.

At 6 cents a day, I don't see why anyone is complaining about the 20$ ~yearly price tag.

If you lost your 300$ car keys and someone said you could pay me 20$ and here they are...it speaks for itself.

And besides, anyone who uses an iOS device is likely in a financial bracket that can afford 20$.
 
jfx94 said:
"If something is lost or stolen, the system will have other Tile devices look for it and report back on its whereabouts."

So they can talk to each other? Hmmm. Wonder how secure that will be...
Click to expand...

not at all. the reader identifies a tile and communicates its location to the mother ship (server). if the server identifies it as a missing tile, it directions the tile's location to its owner. at no point are tiles communicating to each other.
 
nagromme said:
Neat, but make it a little bigger to allow recharging--or better yet, build kinetic-recharging right into it (like some watches, IIRC).
Click to expand...

that would make the device even bigger, there are other BT finders that are battery replaceable for similar price, check in the first page a member showed one.
 
ChrisA said:
2) the Tile needs to by 10x cheaper and paper thin. It needs to apply like a property ID tag. I thin RFID is the right technology NOT Bluetooth
Click to expand...

I don't think RFID has enough range for this sort of application. RFID only works within a couple feet, where Tile is saying it will work up to 150ft.

The one advantage Tile has over other solutions is that it's water proof, so I could see using it at the beach or water park. Or better yet, skiing. Ever drop something while on the ski lift? Good luck finding it in the snow once you ski down to the spot where it fell. Still, I'm on the fence about the once a year thing. I don't want just one of these things. I want 4 or 5 or more. If I could get 4 for $20 it would be an entirely different story.
 
I'll download the app just so I can help be part of their "lost things cloud". But I'll wait until the individual devices become cheaper. $25/year isn't a ridiculous price, but the problem is that I'd want a bunch of them, and that would get expensive fast.

Stick-N-Find seems like a good alternative, since it has easily replaceable batteries. But loses the cloud-find capability.

And for people complaining about the cloud-find not having enough people? Obviously not at first - but when it gets enough users, in a largish city you would presumably have it. Look at Waze - they do crowd-sourced traffic, and it took a while for traffic to become reliable here in town; but now I'm nearly guaranteed to have an accurate traffic report on every major road - not just the freeways.
 
star-affinity said:
I want to have a wrist band or necklace and then I put small stickers on items that I want to keep track of. When they get out of a certain specified range from the wrist band/necklace it should alert me – by a buzz and/or light and/or vibration.

When this kind of product gets released I think it will be a sucess. 🙂

Although this seems like a pretty good start. Would be even better if the battery in the tile was replaceable.
Click to expand...

sticknfind.com is your item then.
 
This would be (and the other product) something nice in the future if they can get the range up to much larger to put in your kids sneakers or something in order to possibly find them if they go missing (and no not to spy on them). I'm talking about for keeping your child(ren) safe.

The other one has a much bigger range though.
 
DonutHands said:
a failure before its even manufactured.

why would anyone buy this over the Stick N Find?
Click to expand...

Sticknfind is getting pretty bad reviews... Of course, this is just vaporware at this point, but they can probably justify their price by "just works"ing.

ChrisA said:
If you lost keys in your own house this might work. But if you lost anything outside of your own home the chaces are very small this could work. You have to be VERY lucky to just happen to have some other person with a Tile App on the iPhone tobe withing a few feet of you Tile.

These things need to...

1) use a UNIVERSAL protocol some all leash type gadgets can interoperate. This way there is at least some small chase some one will have the right app near your tile. It will never happen if there are 100 apps that don't interoperate

2) the Tile needs to by 10x cheaper and paper thin. It needs to apply like a property ID tag. I thin RFID is the right technology NOT Bluetooth

3) in needs to go INSIDE the device it protects, nt an ugly and bulky "tile".
Click to expand...

To your first point... you can retrace your steps, which is useful. I've lost my keys and phone walking my dogs, and this could have been helpful (in the key case!), though I did find them after a while.

RFID isn't exactly the right technology though. It has such a limited range. I think you could have a directional scanner to get well beyond the couple inches you normally see, but that doesn't seem like a great fit for this. Even the 100' this (supposedly) has is minimal for a lost-and-found type of situation.

Anonymous Freak said:
I'll download the app just so I can help be part of their "lost things cloud". But I'll wait until the individual devices become cheaper. $25/year isn't a ridiculous price, but the problem is that I'd want a bunch of them, and that would get expensive fast.

Stick-N-Find seems like a good alternative, since it has easily replaceable batteries. But loses the cloud-find capability.

And for people complaining about the cloud-find not having enough people? Obviously not at first - but when it gets enough users, in a largish city you would presumably have it. Look at Waze - they do crowd-sourced traffic, and it took a while for traffic to become reliable here in town; but now I'm nearly guaranteed to have an accurate traffic report on every major road - not just the freeways.
Click to expand...

I did notice you can get 4 for the price of 3 which makes it hurt a little less when getting a handful.
 
Philonious said:
I'm somewhat stumped at all the hate towards the price tag and the "planned obsolescence."

It's not planned obsolescence if you adjust your mindset that this is a deliberately disposable device that can be recycled.

At 6 cents a day, I don't see why anyone is complaining about the 20$ ~yearly price tag.

If you lost your 300$ car keys and someone said you could pay me 20$ and here they are...it speaks for itself.

And besides, anyone who uses an iOS device is likely in a financial bracket that can afford 20$.
Click to expand...

So what company do you work for? Funny that this is your first post 🙄
Anyways, you can tell your people at the company, not all of us like to blow our money. In real life, this will help for when you lose your stuff in your house, outside of that this has very limited use. Second, your other competitors are similarly priced and their battery is removable and replaceable. You want to compete and keep it disposable then make it half the current price. Hell, the other one has lights, smaller and the app seems to have more features.
 
Ryth said:
This would be (and the other product) something nice in the future if they can get the range up to much larger to put in your kids sneakers or something in order to possibly find them if they go missing (and no not to spy on them). I'm talking about for keeping your child(ren) safe.

The other one has a much bigger range though.
Click to expand...

Which other one? Sticknfind's range is 100 feet. Tile's range is 50-150 feet, "depending on the environment". The Zomm's rang is 30 feet as far as I can tell.
 
I think this thing has potential, especially with the App showing the item's last GPS location, and the possible reporting of location by other 'Tile' devices.

Where I do see a problem, as many have posted, is the lack of a user replaceable battery. The law of Murphy would 'dictate' that your device gets misplaced, just after you have dutifully sent in your Tile, for annual replacement. 🙁😡

Make it beep to indicate low battery, and make that battery user-replaceable. Those batteries are readily available, and dirt-cheap in a $$ store.
 
Philonious said:
I'm somewhat stumped at all the hate towards the price tag and the "planned obsolescence."

It's not planned obsolescence if you adjust your mindset that this is a deliberately disposable device that can be recycled.

At 6 cents a day, I don't see why anyone is complaining about the 20$ ~yearly price tag.

If you lost your 300$ car keys and someone said you could pay me 20$ and here they are...it speaks for itself.

And besides, anyone who uses an iOS device is likely in a financial bracket that can afford 20$.
Click to expand...

yeah right there is a big point to me.
I lost a set of my car keys that I still need to replace. That is a 300+ bill right there that I am kicking down the road until my next credit card cycle as I pay my bill in full and putting that 300+ key replacement on there is a huge thing to eat this cycle.
 
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