There are quite a few different types of “key finders” available. There are some that use some sort of RF channel and a fob to send a signal to make them beep, for example. Recently there have been a many that use Bluetooth (LE) to allow your phone to summon them and even sync with position data on your phone to tell you the last known location of the object.
I didn’t do a lot of research on it, but after the hassle of losing an expensive key fob, I bought some of the ‘Tile’ variety. I didn’t want to fork out the bucks for the little dongles but since then in just a couple of days, I’m enjoying the peace of mind of being able to locate a few things. And hey, what’s not to like about another techie gadget. The app seems to work really well. This generation of tile is really loud for a tiny thing. And you can reverse the process and find you phone with the tile.
My main issue was the non-replaceable battery. I watched a couple of youtubes and I’m convinced the battery can be fairly easily replaced to yield a fully functional unit. There is the fear that the company would (and they could) disable old tiles that had been hacked in this way. It would be simple to have a timer on the device to disable it after a power reset which occurs after a year or so . . . or the company could disable the device through the app, which is essential for any and all functionality of the tile system.
So my point is to tell you this is a pretty cool and hackable device. But there are a few others, some with easily replaceable batteries.
So on the Tile, I give it good marks for the app, the loud beep and for possibly having a crowd of people who may be using it and can help find lost items. I ding it a bit for the non-replaceable battery. I doubt I would pay $12 per year each for a new one. I’ll dremel it open, replace the battery, possibly with an external one and be really annoyed if they defeat the battery replacement hack.
I believe if you lose both phone and an item you can get on the web and ring both things from your Tile account.
I thought the Tile would do geofencing. But looks like the app does not offer that. That is where you tell the system you don’t want certain items separated from each other or the phone. There are usually ‘safe’ zones like your house, identified by GPS or WiFi where you don’t care if your phone and your wallet are separated.
A little irritating because it would simply be a software issue. The data is all there to provide that feature. It would be nice to be able to say "I want to know whenever my (select multiple items) are out of bluetooth range. The app does not offer that. You can check to see if things are in range but there is no alarm on loss of signal. This would be excellent, for ex, while traveling. I don’t want to be separated from my keys, my wallet or my carry-on bag.
Addendum . . . looks like geofencing is defined as keeping an item within a defined area. I simply would like an alarm for separation of phone and item.
Yeah, put a tracker on your kid. If you leave the car without him then . . . alarm. There are already some dedicated kid alarms like that. I guess you would have to remember to use the tracker or device.
Too bad its so expensive to use the cell network for GPS device tracking. They need a really discount plan like $10 per year. Would allow for really powerful and cheap device trackers. The data rate could be really low but I think you still pay at least $100 per year for a device.
I’m just now realizing these Tiles (or possibly / probably another brand) can be used to track stolen items (somewhat). If the tracker can be hidden in or epoxied to either a high value or high risk object perhaps the thief won’t realize it and the item may be tracked by another user’s app at some point to identify its “last seen location”.
In addition, if there is a suspect, that individual’s known locations can be surveyed by using the app on a phone to locate the stolen object.
However, I believe that there are better products for this application than the Tile. It does not do geofencing. There is, apparently, no way to have it notify you when it goes missing from a particular location.
