Outside the house, you are depending on others with phones and the Tile app so that their phone pings your Tile (at the airport, say), that position and ID goes into the cloud and your phone/Tile app pulls that info from the cloud to tell you where the Tile is. Works OK, but just based on the numbers of available users with the Tile app vs the AirTag, the community of folks able to report the location of your Tile seems less, maybe way less.
In other words, it’s reliant on the user base to help report where the tracker is.
(Note that I am not staff. I just volunteer to help out on the forums.)
It also uses Amazon sidewalk. As of Q1 2025, life360 reported over 79.6 million global monthly active users. Then you have the people that just have the app on their phone.
Yup. And these work great. You can find item attached and also ring phone by double pressing button. We keep one in each car as well. Even bought a wallet that has tile holder built in. The tile pro allows replacing battery, which I think justifies the bigger size.
79.6 million is about 1/20th of the 1.56 billion iPhone (AirTag) user base – so even though I’m not a part of that statistic, I can’t deny they have a huge advantage over other trackers.
(Formerly a Windows Phone user, which had a 2% 0% user base.)
The network doesn’t need to be the biggest, it just needs to be big enough for your needs. I was able to track my son even in China. Granted, he was on a class trip with other Americans, so maybe the adults on his tour had him covered. But with only a handful of adults on the trip, apparently adoption is high enough for my needs.
I use a tile to track where my son while he walks home. The location of his key in his pocket (and thus him) updates every 5 or 10 minutes while he’s walking along a busy street that has traffic but few other pedestrians.
I mostly use my tiles in the home, and as others mentioned most often to find my phone, not the other way round.
I have used them a couple times to find keys that got left behind at a basketball tournament and that sort of thing. And I’ve left my wallet and house keys in my car several times. It hasn’t failed me yet (knock on wood). It can be handy to ring the missing device in these cases, if the item is hiding under a seat or something.
The app remembers where it last saw your stuff, so most of the time you don’t need the user network at all to tell you where you left something.
I definitely use them on bikes. Not sure the range of the pro is dramatically better than the other models. If you want to know which homeless encampment has your bike, then this (or iTags) is the cheap solution you’re looking for. For a kid, it’s not as accurate or up to date as GPS tracking on a phone. And it’s not good enough for tracking something important in real time, such as a pet or as a replacement for LoJack on a car.
There are a few integrations with other companies that are handy. I have a few of the Skullcandy Evo something earbuds that have tile built in. Less than $20 each here on Woot. Each bud and the case are all tracked individually. I’m guessing apple buds do the same. For something so easily lost, tile tracking saves a lot of hassle. And no need for another app
I have several of their older models that is smaller and several of these. I now prefer the larger ones. More durable, less likely to be set off in your pocket during church or a work meeting. And they make a nice rubber sleeve to protect them. Excellent design.
Thanks for your comments. I was kind of concerned about the larger size and only really want to use it to find my iPhone .
I have several AirTags and I hate that I can’t use them to find my iPhone only can use my iPhone to find them. The two-way function seems a benefit to me.
My cat lost 2 AirTags I still haven’t found and the location my iPhone says they are at is wrong because they are not there. This is why I switched to a GPS tracker for my little 4-legged wandering Adventurer. Now I can track him down to about a 5 ft x 5 ft location. Thanks again for your points about the larger size Tile Pro.
