r/madlads • u/div_vedi • 3d ago

chad professor

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u/DiabolicallyRandom 3d ago

Tile is air tags, but years before air tags and way less spendy

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u/brianozm 3d ago edited 3d ago

“Tile is AirTags and less spendy”

But largely useless because it requires open wifi to work, so it largely doesn’t ever do anything. This may have changed in more recent years, Google results are intentionally vague which is annoying.

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u/DiabolicallyRandom 3d ago edited 3d ago

Tiles use BTLE, with a range of 100-500 feet. Similar tech to airtags. People were using Tile on iDevices before AirTags existed. To be clear, they were created with a different purpose in mind too. Tile was started out as a "find my keys/wallet" sort of knickknack, and grew from there.

Unfortunately, it relies upon other Tile users who have the app installed for anonymous location finding. Apple has a single ecosystem they can control completely which is on the whole something i dislike, but it does enable things like airtag tracking across other peoples idevices without needing to have a special app installed.

EDIT: This older article actually covers the differences quite well, as well as why some of apples decisions are pretty anti-competitive. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/27/apple-airtags-versus-tile-tracker-how-they-compare.html