Forget about tagging your phone, wallet, earbuds, keys or anything else that you deem essential. Tile, the company known for its AirTag-like trackers, now has a new offering that helps make sure you never lose the most prized possession of all — your feline friend.
The new Tile for Cats tracker from Life360 is a version of the Tile Sticker tracker complete with a silicon attachment and a 250-foot Bluetooth range. Seriously, it’s meant to be attached to your cat’s collar so that you always know exactly where your precious furbaby is.
The battery for the Tile for Cats tracker is set to last three whole years (that’s around 29 cat years, by the way), with the sticker being easily replaceable. It also features AI assistant integration for Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa, meaning that you can find out exactly which bed your cat is hiding under with a simple voice command.
The Tile for Cats includes the Tile sticker and attachment that is designed to fit on most cat collars, including breakaway collars. The attachment is capable of stretching up to 1.7 times without breaking and is water resistant.
The new Tile is Life360’s first dedicated pet tracker, although it had teased the idea of using its standard trackers on animals before. The company’s new offering was created for indoor use only due to its limited range, so it’s best if you don’t let your kitty wander too far.
The Tile for Cats costs $40 USD (approximately $54.53 CAD.)
For more cat-related tech news, check out how much cats have been enjoying the 2022 PS5 title, Stray.
Bluetooth tracker maker Tile wants to tamp down on people using trackers for crimes like stalking by threatening to slap users with a $1 million USD fine. The fine was announced as part of a new program that will also ask users to verify their identity with a government ID and allow Tile to share information with law enforcement.
Bluetooth tracking devices fell under increased scrutiny after Apple joined the game with its AirTag tracker. While the devices were intended for uses — like keeping track of important items like keys or wallets, or as anti-theft devices — trackers gained a more nefarious reputation as tools used by stalkers and thieves.
Thanks to the scrutiny, Apple and other tracker companies like Tile rushed out new anti-stalking features that enable victims to find unwanted trackers. The problem with that is that those tools can also help thieves spot trackers on stolen goods, effectively killing trackers’ anti-theft capabilities. Tile’s solution is a new ‘Anti-Theft Mode’ that hides it from the ‘Scan and Secure‘ anti-stalking feature, but only if users verify their ID and agree to the fine.
“All Tile customers now have the option to make their devices invisible to Scan and Secure, meaning thieves will not be able to misuse our stalking prevention features to locate and disable a Tile device after stealing your valuables,” Chris Hulls explained in a blog post shared on Medium. Hulls is the founder and CEO of Life360, the company that owns Tile.
Hulls goes on to detail that Tile users need to manually opt-in to the feature and when they do so, they must:
“Verify their real identity with a government-issued ID”
“Allow [Tile] to partner and share this information with law enforcement (even without a subpoena if stalking is suspected)”
“Agree to pay a $1 million penalty if they are convicted in a court of law to have used Tile in a criminal manner”
Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a pretty wild set of conditions just to use a Tile tracker in a specific way. Sure, you don’t need to do any of this, but even so, it seems shady. Moreso considering Life360’s history — the company offered a family-safety app that let people track the location of family members and got caught selling the precise location data of users of that app in late 2021 and in 2022 promised to switch to selling aggregate location data instead.
Elsewhere in the blog post, Hulls stresses that those who are “part of the 99.99% of our customers who follow the law” have nothing to worry about. “If you’re a criminal, we’ll do our best to make sure you feel the full weight of the law and face serious financial consequences if you misuse our products.”
To be fair to Hulls, he also dedicated a large amount of the blog post to dissecting the stalking problem and examining how solutions from Tile and Apple have worked (or failed) so far. It’s all very informative, though it doesn’t lead me to the conclusion that I should willingly hand over more of my data to Tile (I do, however, agree about increasing penalties for stalking since it’s a pervasive problem not limited to users of Bluetooth trackers).
Dell has a fancy new stylus with built-in finding tech powered by Tile.
As spotted by The Verge, the new ‘Premier Rechargeable Active Pen‘ works with the Tile app to help users find it when it goes missing. People can open the Tile app, tap ‘find’ and the Premier stylus will flash its LED lights and buzz.
This sounds like a pretty handy feature for something like a stylus, which could be easily misplaced. Of course, for a stylus that costs $139.99 in Canada, I would hope it could light up and alert me to its location.
As The Verge points out, Tile is working hard to expand its finding tech into just about everything. The company has worked with Intel to help track lost laptops, and the feature is now available on compatible HP, MSI, and Fujitsu PCs.
Apple’s AirTags helped spike the popularity of Bluetooth-powered tracking hardware, but the scale offered by AirTags and the Find My network also boosted the use of trackers for stalking.
In short, people have started using AirTags to track the location of other people by slipping them into bags or even attaching them to cars.
Now Bluetooth tracker-maker Tile is launching its own tool to help users fend off stalkers. Like the various safety measures implemented by Apple, Tile’s new ‘Scan and Secure’ tool will check for nearby, unknown Tile or Tile-enabled devices travelling with users.
Tile released an overview of how to access and use the feature, which you can view here. It’s worth noting you need to download Tile’s app to use it, although you don’t need to make an account or sign in to perform a scan.
Scan and Secure is the first part of Tile’s efforts to improve user safety. Tile also plans to work with experts to further improve safety.
While good to see Tile take steps to protect people, it’s frustrating that both Tile, Apple and other tracking companies created potentially dangerous systems that facilitate stalking, then require people to use the systems to make sure they’re not being stalked. I don’t use Tiles or AirTags because I’m not interested in sharing my location data with these companies (for good reason) and yet I may need to use these apps now to protect myself.
Family tracking service Life360 has been selling the location data of millions of its users, according to a new report from The Markup.
The company — which describes itself as a “family safety platform” — aims to allow family members to track each other through a smartphone app available on iOS and Android. The platform is currently used by 33 million people around the world.
According to The Markup’s reporting, Life360 sells its user’s location data — including information tied to children and adults — to several data brokers that then sell that information to third-party companies. That said, Life360 states that it doesn’t sell the location data of children under 13. Two former Life360 employees say that the company is one of the largest sources of location data in the tech industry and that it doesn’t ensure its location data can be traced back to individual users.
In a statement, Life360 CEO Chris Hull said that selling location data is an “important part” of the company’s business model and that it has “no means to confirm or deny the accuracy” of whether it’s one of the largest sources of location data in the industry.
Life360 is in the process of acquiring Bluetooth tracker company Tile for about $205 million USD (roughly $260 million CAD). While Tile has experienced success in the past, the company is likely under pressure from Apple’s recently released AirTag Bluetooth tracker and its ability to leverage the billions of Apple devices in the world to create its crowdsourced network.
Big news: Tile is joining the @Life360 family! We’ll continue as our own brand, delivering the excellent experience our customers deserve. Lots of exciting things ahead! https://t.co/zJGcNiXW5U
California-based Life360 is in the process of acquiring Tile in a deal valued at around $205 million USD (roughly $260 million CAD).
The acquisition — which likely comes as a result of growing competition in the Bluetooth tracker market from Apple and its AirTag — will see Tile CEO CJ Prober retain his position and join Life360’s board of directors.
Life360 is a family safety and tracking app that also recently acquired Jiobit, an item locating hardware startup that creates cellular-connected trackers for children and pets.
“This acquisition marks a key step forward towards Life360 achieving its vision of being the world’s leading platform for safety and location services,” said Chris Hulls, co-founder and CEO of Life360, in a statement.
Life360 says it views the acquisition as an opportunity to expand business in not the just ‘family-tracking’ market, but also for locating “people, pets and things they love all from one mobile platform.”
Big news: Tile is joining the @Life360 family! We’ll continue as our own brand, delivering the excellent experience our customers deserve. Lots of exciting things ahead! https://t.co/zJGcNiXW5U
“We’ll be bundling Tile devices as part of our Membership plans, and Tile will offer Life360 Membership benefits to its customers. We’ll also start work on integrating our technologies so Tile devices, Jiobit wearables, and Life360 app customers will show up on a unified map – people, pets, and things all in one place,” said Hulls in a blog post.
Further, Life360’s already established 33 million smartphone users are expected to expand Tile’s network by 10x.
This comes soon after Prober announced that revenue from its line of Bluetooth tracking devices is up. Last month, Tile revealed its refreshed lineup. The new series of products include Mate, Sticker and Pro trackers.
Tile CEO CJ Prober has recently stated that revenue from its line of Bluetooth tracking devices is up. The company’s success is maintained despite what Prober believes is “unfair competition” from Apple and its AirTag.
According to Prober, Tile has sold 40 million devices. This is despite the direct competition from Apple since the launch of AirTags back in May of this year. The CEO went on to state that “Revenue was up in the first half of the year,” which could be surprising seeing as how similar Apple’s AirTags function in comparison.
Business remains on an upward trajectory and Tile is said to be up 200-percent year-over-year. That said, Prober believes Apple is still self-preferencing. Speaking to Wired, Prober recalled a time that Tile’s products could be purchased from the Apple Store.
However, “very quickly, we got kicked out of their stores.” Prober believes Apple made changes to the iOS software “that deprecated our experience,” while boosting the AirTag and its ‘Find My’ network. Prober encourages and “welcomes competition from Apple,” though he believes it has to be fair.
In response to claims of self-preferential treatment, Apple spoke to Wired and denied any purposeful unfairness in the following statement:
“We made APIs available this summer and have been working with UWB chipset developers to ensure iOS compatibility — some already have development kits available for purchase,” an Apple spokesperson told Wired. “We have always embraced competition as the best way to drive great experiences for our customers, and we have worked hard to build a platform in iOS that enables third-party developers to thrive.”
Last month, Tile revealed its refreshed lineup. The new series of products include Mate, Sticker and Pro trackers. Tile hopes to offer water resistance and have an extended range over what’s currently available. Tile’s catalogue of products offers options for customers to choose the essentials they need in a tracking device. It also enables users to prioritize volume over battery warranty when looking at the Pro device over the Mate or Sticker.
Apple’s AirTag, on the other hand, is still in its infancy. AirTags were released in May and are only available in the one model for $39. However, Apple has released a series of accessories alongside its tracking device.
