Tile launches safer ‘anti-AirTag’ solution to track your objects

Tile launches a new product for tracking its items – self-adhesive labels with a QR code. Simple, effective, you can say “old-fashioned”.

Apple AirTags didn’t get all the positive press that the Apple brand would have liked. While these little gadgets are great for keeping track of the location of things you keep losing, they have also generated a lot of controversy. But AirTags are not the only tracking products on the market. Apple has just followed in the footsteps of Tile, a company that has been offering something a little different for a long time.

Tile launches new product to track its objects

Tiles are a well-known brand in the market. The company offered Tile trackers years before Apple did. Unlike AirTags, which are the same, Tile offers trackers in different shapes, sizes, and styles that are perfect for key chains, wallets, and other places you might need them. Tile products also work exactly like AirTags, but within the Time ecosystem. In the same way that AirTags communicate with Apple devices on the Find My network to update their location, Tile trackers communicate with smartphones running the Tile app.

Self-adhesive labels with QR code

The tile has not received the same amount of media attention or criticism for that matter since it operates on a smaller scale. With Tile, you don’t know if someone has an app or not. With AirTags, anyone with an iPhone can potentially trigger an alert. Either way, Tile may have the same privacy concerns as AirTags. Perhaps that’s why the company is now offering a minimalist, simpler version of its tracker in the US: self-adhesive QR codes.

Tile called them Lost and Found Labels, but they are simple QR code stickers. These tags are very simple: you attach one to an object you don’t want to lose, you activate it with the Tile app, and then you can specify how you want to be contacted if someone reaches out to your object, be it email or phone.

Unlike Tile trackers, they don’t need to have the Tile app on their device. Every Good Samaritan has a QR code scanner on their smartphone, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Another advantage over conventional trackers is the absence of a battery. Since they are self-adhesive, you won’t have to worry about changing the battery after a year or having to completely replace the batteries. These stickers can even be washed in the dishwasher.

Simple, effective, “old-fashioned”, one might say

So of course you lose the practicality of passive tracking since these tags can’t automatically link to nearby devices, but they work in much the same way. People are naturally curious. We see the label, we scan this label. And the fact that it has four “Scan if found”messages printed on it is a clear call to action.

Currently, Tile, in a very odd way, only sells its Lost and Found labels in the United States. Indeed, you need to buy three sheets of five labels, i.e. 15 QR code stickers at a time, for $14.99. So far, France has no right to do so. Hope it will be soon.