Battery is not replaceable
It’s not clear if this model is the Tile Mate or Pro. The Mate was made in 2018 and 2020 models, while the Pro began in 2022. Or, as the description says, maybe it’s a late-manufactured Mate?
Either way their own site suggests you can replace the batteries:
Ah ha, yes, the Mate 2022 is a separate model, and has a non-replaceable battery:
| No of Tiles | Price | Price Per Tile |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12.99 | 12.99 |
| 2 | 23.99 | 11.995 |
| 3 | 32.99 | 10.99666667 |
| 4 | 41.99 | 10.4975 |
| 5 | 49.99 | 9.998 |
| 10 | 94.99 | 9.499 |
I googled “is the Tile Mate 2022 battery replaceable?” and this video popped up.
Spoiler Alert: it is, about as easy as replacing the battery in your phone. I have a few of the Pro tiles and the thing that makes them great is easily replaceable batteries. I was thinking of pulling the trigger on this deal but the battery issue is a deal breaker for me.
PLEASE BE CAREFUL
This happened maybe because I’m old. I bought two of these last November for my elderly father to help him keep track of his car keys.
One year later, the Tile company charged me $29.99 because apparently there’s an annual fee for this service?
I don’t remember agreeing to that, and don’t remember seeing that as part of the purchase agreement,
So I guess my message here is to be a little more careful than I was - these Tiles may be an annual cost if you can’t figure out how to push it to someone else.
So when you buy these on their Tile website, I’ve noticed that it automatically sticks you on a trial subscription - but you can change it to no subscription. My assumption with this being on Woot’s site that there would be no automatic subscription, and instead you would maybe get the offer when you set the app/new tile item up on your phone.
My only concern with going with the previous model is how long are the batteries good for? My assumption is about a year (actually I own a few and they lasted more like 1.5 to almost 2 years), but do the batteries drain much before these get activated? ie if I don’t activate one until Jan 2026, what sort of lifespan would it have?
Looks lile the subscription gives you insurance if they cant find your item they will replace it
Some models have replaceable batteries: I’ve bought some and they’re well worth paying full price.
Dumb question: Do these work like Airtags? If I’m shipping something FedEx for example and I have one of these in the package, can I track it?
Can we get a mod @Narfcake @Froodyfrog or @ThunderThighs to answer these questions pretty please?
Some I have seen:
What model?
Are batteries replaceable?
Does purchase sign you up for auto subscription?
Do they work like an air tag with GPS anywhere?
I may have missed some…
THANK YOU!
The battery in the Mate 2022 version could be replaced, but is not designed to be and doing so is difficult. Requires de-soldering and re-soldering tabs.
If a Tile is out of Bluetooth range, it relies on “finding” other Tiles nearby that report location to the network. If it ends up no where near another Tile, you could be out of luck. That being said, it did work when my husband lost his wallet. Not that we got it back, but we were able to track its probable path from a garbage truck to a dump in a nearby city. We still ended up cancelling & replacing cards & the wallet, but we were relatively certain it was not stolen.
Thanks. Similar to an airtag. I guess it depends on how many tiles are out there in the wild.
I’m watching this thinking “oh, it doesn’t seem too bad” until it got to the part about the battery being soldered on. Not cool… but can you just desolder it and not have to resolder/weld it back when you replace it?
Also, what a TIL moment, I didn’t know that each part of the button battery name states the material and technical size #themoreyouknow
Brah…no one should use these tiles for bathroom renovations. It’s way too expensive and has a hole.
Haven’t watched, but typically when batteries are soldered in, there are no contacts or holder to allow for anything else. The only option is another battery that has to be soldered in.
(Note that I am not staff. I just volunteer to help out on the forums.)
As long as you can find a CR2032 with solder tabs already welded on you can in theory desolder the old and solder on the new one. On a very quick lookup, I havent seen one that has the same tab layout as the video showed, with a right angle tab setup.