Introduction:

What is a tile tracker?

Have you lost your house key and are scrambling through your neighbourhood to locate it? Don’t worry! Tile has an easy and convenient solution for you.

Tile is an American consumer electronics company that is best known for its Tile Bluetooth Trackers, that connect via Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE or BLE), allowing the owner of a smartphone app to locate those trackers.

Tile technology helps users to find their lost belongings, such as keys, backpacks, etc using Bluetooth 4.0.

In the US, there are 26 million Tiles out there (2019 figures), with 6 million location requests per day. Tile reported that it has over 90% of the US Bluetooth tracker market.

Operating System:

The Tile manufactured devices work with a companion mobile app, both for Android and for iOS operating systems.

How it works:

• Ring your things: Use the Tile app to ping your Tile, if it’s at a nearby location. Just tap the ‘Find’ button.
• Find your phone: Double press the Tile button on your Tile device to give your phone a forced – ring, even when it’s in silent mode.
• Notify When Found: If your Tile is truly lost, tap the Notify When Found, button — every phone running the Tile app can anonymously help you track your lost Tile.
• See it on a map: If you’re out of range you can see the last location that was registered (which was mapped from your phone’s location at that time).

You can retrace your steps to find that lost item.

What is Find with Tile?

Find with Tile technology expands the Tile system beyond just its own trackers. It enables other Bluetooth devices to be included in the Tile ecosphere, to locate those devices.

It’s all software-driven and uses the headphones’ existing Bluetooth chip and battery.

It’s a massive network designed to keep track of a whole range of different items —  over 20 partnerships have already been announced.

In the future as the density of the Tile community increases, the chance of locating the lost item will get boosted. The system also works in reverse gear – you can use any Tile to find your phone with a double press of the button.

Partnerships:

Hereto, it has partnered with some of the biggest Bluetooth hardware providers:

• Qualcomm
• Dialogue Semiconductor
• Silicon Labs
• Cypress
• Toshiba
• Nordic Semiconductor.

Some big brands already working with Tile:

• Skullcandy
• Bose
• Samsonite
• Herschel
• Away
• KeySmart
• Xfinity
• Monster
• Nomad
• Boosted

How to use Tile tracker at home:

Tile also has partnered with Google and Amazon, enabling you to use Google Assistant or Alexa to find devices.

You can use your voice too or can also use Siri Shortcuts.

Tile will be supporting Assistant Connect, allowing interaction without using Google cloud.

You’ll be able to locate a Tile using your Google Home or Nest Hub and without any information going via the cloud – it can be a point to point interaction within your home.

In the case of Alexa, you can simply say “Alexa, ask Tile to find my keys”.

Meanwhile, Tile has partnered with   Comcast’s whose set-top boxes can be used for searching lost items from your bedroom TV.

Tile Enabled Headphones & Earphones:

In the case of headphones, there isn’t any need for a separate Tile tracker for it as it comes in built — the system will run using the device’s native Bluetooth hardware.

The Audio manufacturer Skullcandy has partnered with Tile.

The most affordable of their new Tile-enabled lineup is the Skullcandy Sesh Evo.

 Skullcandy has the widest range of options with embedded Tile technology. Few of the products are Indy Evo, Indy Fuel, Push Ultra,Crusher Evo, Ink’d Active and the noise-cancelling Method ANC, Venue, Crusher ANC.