Tile has introduced a slimmer version of its popular lost-and-found tracker that is as thin as two credit cards.
Tile Slim can be attached to MacBooks, iPhones, iPads, passports, and other important items, or placed inside items like wallets and purses, to help you locate them in the event they are lost. Unlike the original Tile, which remains available for $25, the Tile Slim does not have a circular cutout to attach it to a keychain.
By tapping a button in the companion iOS app, the Tile Slim will deliver an audible chime to help you locate an item by sound when it's within a range of up to approximately 100 feet but out of sight. Or, if you lost the iPhone itself, simply tap the button on the Time Slim and the iPhone will start chiming, even in silent mode.
If you still cannot find your Tile-affixed item, you can use the Tile app to check its last known location on a map. If your Tiled wallet comes within range of any other Tile, for example, its location will automatically be updated within the iPhone app.
The tracker uses Bluetooth LE and has a built-in unremovable battery that is rated to last one year, at which point customers can participate in the reTile program to purchase a new Tile Slim for a discounted price of $21, or a four-pack for $84.
Tile Slim is available now for $30, or a four-pack can be purchased for $100. Tile ships to the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and most countries in the European Union, excluding Cyprus, Croatia, and Malta.
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Top Rated Comments
(View all)It's still huge. Get it down to dime size and you'll have something.
That would dramatically reduce the battery life, rendering it useless.
I love this concept, but it's hard to justify $30 for only one year. They'll either have to figure out how to extend the battery life or cut the price significantly to get me to bite.
The reTile program makes this slightly less painful, though I agree it's the worst thing about it. The nice thing about the program is that you'll always have the latest version of the Tile. It's a bit unfortunate though that the replacement for this one costs $21. It's $12 for the keychain version.
Does it still rely on oh so useless bluetooth within limited range or the hope that there are other tile users in your area?
How do you think it should work instead? It always displays the location where you last saw it, so range isn't the biggest deal.
I bought the old version and it was good despite its huge size, but the battery is not replaceable and they assume that it will only last a year and discontinue your service after 12 months.
Maybe that should have been obvious to me when I bought it, but I was not about to pay again for something that I ended up using maybe 3 times in that 12 months.
I could stick one on my laptop, but it’s not away from home enough to justify the cost and it can also ping itself on a map pretty well.
Now, if Apple were to build the mesh-networking functionality of a Tile into Macs from the ground up, and it used either the main battery or a rechargeable ultra cap or something, that might be more useful. The “near another Tile” part would be particularly useful in that case if they were also included in iPhones, since they’re so ubiquitous.