6 ms·

Agreed. I bought a couple Tiles before AirTags were available. They worked fine, but AirTags are just better in every way.

foooorsyth 3y ago
AirTags are not better in one very important way: they don't prevent theft. They will notify thieves that they are hidden in a valuable item that they are stealing if the thief carries an iPhone. Tile has a feature where you can submit your info and sign some sort of extra contract stating that you won't use your Tile for stalking/illegal activity, and you can actually hide a Tile in your bike frame and it can be used to find your bike if it goes missing. AirTags are useless for this because Apple doesn't want them used for stalking.
- aabhay 3y ago
  If you hide the tag in a way that it can’t be removed (locked to the bike etc) then what option does the thief have? They might actually decide not to steal the item!
  - spogbiper 3y ago
    hulk smash. hulk defeat security
    - worthless-trash 3y ago
      Not sure hulk know which part to smash! Hulk not smart because smart hulk not steal.
  - sleepybrett 3y ago
    certainly removing the battery from the tag or just smashing it with the bolt cutters you are probably already using to steal the bike...
- joe5150 3y ago
  How do hidden trackers "prevent" theft? If a thief steals your bike and is notified that it's being tracked, they're probably much more likely to abandon it somewhere, at which point you can recover it. This seems like a safer bet than trying to hunt them down yourself. (It should go without saying the police are not going to go get your bicycle back for you even if you do hand them the GPS coordinates.)
  - foooorsyth 3y ago
    It’s a massive deterrence. LoJack has been in business since 1986 for a reason. Also, the attitude of “don’t go and get your stuff back yourself, it’s not safe” is just castrated cowardice and only emboldens thieves. Thieves should be afraid of both law enforcement and vigilante response. Better society when both are on the table.
    - lupire 3y ago
      How does an anti-theft tech that know one knows is there deter anything? Cars are frequently stolen, as you may have noticed.
      - foooorsyth 3y ago
        Thieves will begin to expect it to be there some of the time, after sufficient police/vigilante response. And perhaps it will be hard to find. Hence, deterrence. Cars are stolen far less often than they would be otherwise partially due to technology like LoJack. Did you grow up in the US? Steering wheel locks used to be on every other parked car. Immobilizers and LoJack made them a thing you buy for your weekend classic car only.
        thomas_ma 3y ago
        Immobilizers had an order-of-magnitude larger impact on car theft than LoJack. It used to be relatively trivial to start a car without the keys once inside. Now (disregarding certain Hyundai/Kia models) it’s essentially impossible to start without the key.
saurik 3y ago
AirTags only come in a single size and shape that only makes sense for larger container objects. Tile makes a flat credit-card sized variant that you can slide in your wallet, and the adapters required to put an AirTag on a keychain is pretty ridiculous in comparison to the tiny variants you can get from Tile with a built-in hole for this purpose. (Also: AFAIK the "large"--not really, in comparison to the AirTag + adapter, lol--Tile Pro variants have a noticeably longer range than AirTags.) Honestly, the only thing, to me, missing from Tile is the direction arrow finder, which is certainly useful, and yet... the speakers on the Tile are much much better so it just doesn't matter so much? (BTW: it is extremely stupid that that arrow only works in two directions. I waste so much time following the arrow only to realize I need to go upstairs -- I live in a two story apartment with a bedroom and an office above my kitchen and living room: it isn't larger than my friends's apartments, but it is really nice having two floors -- that I am only doing because the sound isn't loud enough on AirTags.) Frankly, the whole argument for AirTags being inherently better is merely that they have a "bigger network", but for most of my objects I am not scavenging around town looking for then, nor am I ever going to be chasing some thief around the city in my car looking to steal it back, hoping to catch up to them before they disable or throw out the tracker... that vigilante justice idea associated with this product category is just a crazy pipe dream. Instead, I am pretty much always just trying to figure out which pair of pants I left my wallet in today, or on which shelf I left my keys: I would actually be much happier with a purely local product that only responded to encrypted pings from my personal phone and only even did that when I actively ask it to (as despite using both Tile and AirTags for years now the "you left your item behind" notifications have only happened before I myself noticed once or twice in a way which was helpful... it just doesn't ping often enough, with either product, to be maximally useful). And looking at the replies to this, I have learned AirTags are actually missing what is to me a glorious feature of Tile: that I can push a button on my keys and find my phone in reverse. I hadn't noticed this lack before as I am only using AirTags in large objects I don't keep on my person (which makes their notifications really annoying as the UI fails to eat old ones even when I walk back to my object... this seems very fixable), but I don't want to have to buy an Apple Watch just to have a way to find my phone :/.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  Kind of. Apple's Find My network is open to third party accessory makers. Here's a card-shaped one https://chipolo.net/en/products/chipolo-card-spot https://chipolo.net/en/products/chipolo-card-spot I don't believe third party accessories support the compass-style precision finding though.
sleepybrett 3y ago
one way they aren't better. You have the tile but can't find your damn phone. Sure there is 'find my' but the little button on the tile that causes the phone to chime was actually pretty handy. I imagine apple removed it because tags are not paired to phones (like tiles) but instead to the whole account. If you were to push the theoretical button on the airtag your entire house would probably set to chiming (apple tv, homepod, all the phones and ipads on the account all the macs...)
- filoleg 3y ago
  > If you were to push the theoretical button on the airtag your entire house would probably set to chiming (apple tv, homepod, all the phones and ipads on the account all the macs...) There is a simple solution to this: if you press the hypothetical AirTag button, trigger the closest iPhone attached to your account, and then you can manually pick any specific device in Find My as usual from the iPhone.
gghffguhvc 3y ago
I find Tiles easier to locate in a room. I think the lower quality sound or frequencies used are easier to locate - especially if under something.
sunnybeetroot 3y ago
Same for me, and AirTags don’t push a subscription service down my throat with spammy notifications.
mattmaroon 3y ago
I have both and I prefer the Tiles. 99.9% of the time the network doesn’t matter because the item isn’t lost, I just don’t remember where I left it, and it’s either in range or wherever Tile shows the last known location to be. And even if it is lost, Tile app remembers it as being at the last place where I had it and my phone, which is practically always where I left it. Airtag surely has better coverage, since like 50% of phones are helping, but the one time I actually lost something Tile found it. Someone had moved it so the location must have been uploaded by another Tile user. I use my Tiles daily to find my AirPods or a key set, I’ve used it once in years to find that (my Airpods case) when it fell out of my pocket in a park. Tile is louder and easier to hear. Tile has several form factors, Airtag only has one, and honestly, any tile form factor is better than Airtags. I swear they picked the worst possible shape for it, it just has to make whatever you put it in bulge. You have to buy some sort of case to even use it most of the time, whereas a Tile can pop directly onto your key ring. Airtag can’t ring my phone. I do that frequently. I’ve used both extensively, I’ll keep buying Tiles. Or maybe one of these newer ones. I’d go so far as to say Airtag is only better at finding something that’s been stolen, and that’s just a tiny percent of the use cases. Tile is better in every other way.

foooorsyth 3y ago

AirTags are not better in one very important way: they don't prevent theft. They will notify thieves that they are hidden in a valuable item that they are stealing if the thief carries an iPhone. Tile has a feature where you can submit your info and sign some sort of extra contract stating that you won't use your Tile for stalking/illegal activity, and you can actually hide a Tile in your bike frame and it can be used to find your bike if it goes missing. AirTags are useless for this because Apple doesn't want them used for stalking.

aabhay 3y ago
If you hide the tag in a way that it can’t be removed (locked to the bike etc) then what option does the thief have? They might actually decide not to steal the item!
- spogbiper 3y ago
  hulk smash. hulk defeat security
  - worthless-trash 3y ago
    Not sure hulk know which part to smash! Hulk not smart because smart hulk not steal.
- sleepybrett 3y ago
  certainly removing the battery from the tag or just smashing it with the bolt cutters you are probably already using to steal the bike...
joe5150 3y ago
How do hidden trackers "prevent" theft? If a thief steals your bike and is notified that it's being tracked, they're probably much more likely to abandon it somewhere, at which point you can recover it. This seems like a safer bet than trying to hunt them down yourself. (It should go without saying the police are not going to go get your bicycle back for you even if you do hand them the GPS coordinates.)
- foooorsyth 3y ago
  It’s a massive deterrence. LoJack has been in business since 1986 for a reason. Also, the attitude of “don’t go and get your stuff back yourself, it’s not safe” is just castrated cowardice and only emboldens thieves. Thieves should be afraid of both law enforcement and vigilante response. Better society when both are on the table.
  - lupire 3y ago
    How does an anti-theft tech that know one knows is there deter anything? Cars are frequently stolen, as you may have noticed.
    - foooorsyth 3y ago
      Thieves will begin to expect it to be there some of the time, after sufficient police/vigilante response. And perhaps it will be hard to find. Hence, deterrence. Cars are stolen far less often than they would be otherwise partially due to technology like LoJack. Did you grow up in the US? Steering wheel locks used to be on every other parked car. Immobilizers and LoJack made them a thing you buy for your weekend classic car only.
      - thomas_ma 3y ago
        Immobilizers had an order-of-magnitude larger impact on car theft than LoJack. It used to be relatively trivial to start a car without the keys once inside. Now (disregarding certain Hyundai/Kia models) it’s essentially impossible to start without the key.

saurik 3y ago

AirTags only come in a single size and shape that only makes sense for larger container objects. Tile makes a flat credit-card sized variant that you can slide in your wallet, and the adapters required to put an AirTag on a keychain is pretty ridiculous in comparison to the tiny variants you can get from Tile with a built-in hole for this purpose. (Also: AFAIK the "large"--not really, in comparison to the AirTag + adapter, lol--Tile Pro variants have a noticeably longer range than AirTags.) Honestly, the only thing, to me, missing from Tile is the direction arrow finder, which is certainly useful, and yet... the speakers on the Tile are much much better so it just doesn't matter so much? (BTW: it is extremely stupid that that arrow only works in two directions. I waste so much time following the arrow only to realize I need to go upstairs -- I live in a two story apartment with a bedroom and an office above my kitchen and living room: it isn't larger than my friends's apartments, but it is really nice having two floors -- that I am only doing because the sound isn't loud enough on AirTags.) Frankly, the whole argument for AirTags being inherently better is merely that they have a "bigger network", but for most of my objects I am not scavenging around town looking for then, nor am I ever going to be chasing some thief around the city in my car looking to steal it back, hoping to catch up to them before they disable or throw out the tracker... that vigilante justice idea associated with this product category is just a crazy pipe dream. Instead, I am pretty much always just trying to figure out which pair of pants I left my wallet in today, or on which shelf I left my keys: I would actually be much happier with a purely local product that only responded to encrypted pings from my personal phone and only even did that when I actively ask it to (as despite using both Tile and AirTags for years now the "you left your item behind" notifications have only happened before I myself noticed once or twice in a way which was helpful... it just doesn't ping often enough, with either product, to be maximally useful). And looking at the replies to this, I have learned AirTags are actually missing what is to me a glorious feature of Tile: that I can push a button on my keys and find my phone in reverse. I hadn't noticed this lack before as I am only using AirTags in large objects I don't keep on my person (which makes their notifications really annoying as the UI fails to eat old ones even when I walk back to my object... this seems very fixable), but I don't want to have to buy an Apple Watch just to have a way to find my phone :/.

madeofpalk 3y ago
Kind of. Apple's Find My network is open to third party accessory makers. Here's a card-shaped one https://chipolo.net/en/products/chipolo-card-spot https://chipolo.net/en/products/chipolo-card-spot I don't believe third party accessories support the compass-style precision finding though.

sleepybrett 3y ago

one way they aren't better. You have the tile but can't find your damn phone. Sure there is 'find my' but the little button on the tile that causes the phone to chime was actually pretty handy. I imagine apple removed it because tags are not paired to phones (like tiles) but instead to the whole account. If you were to push the theoretical button on the airtag your entire house would probably set to chiming (apple tv, homepod, all the phones and ipads on the account all the macs...)

filoleg 3y ago
> If you were to push the theoretical button on the airtag your entire house would probably set to chiming (apple tv, homepod, all the phones and ipads on the account all the macs...) There is a simple solution to this: if you press the hypothetical AirTag button, trigger the closest iPhone attached to your account, and then you can manually pick any specific device in Find My as usual from the iPhone.

gghffguhvc 3y ago

I find Tiles easier to locate in a room. I think the lower quality sound or frequencies used are easier to locate - especially if under something.

sunnybeetroot 3y ago

Same for me, and AirTags don’t push a subscription service down my throat with spammy notifications.

mattmaroon 3y ago

I have both and I prefer the Tiles. 99.9% of the time the network doesn’t matter because the item isn’t lost, I just don’t remember where I left it, and it’s either in range or wherever Tile shows the last known location to be. And even if it is lost, Tile app remembers it as being at the last place where I had it and my phone, which is practically always where I left it. Airtag surely has better coverage, since like 50% of phones are helping, but the one time I actually lost something Tile found it. Someone had moved it so the location must have been uploaded by another Tile user. I use my Tiles daily to find my AirPods or a key set, I’ve used it once in years to find that (my Airpods case) when it fell out of my pocket in a park. Tile is louder and easier to hear. Tile has several form factors, Airtag only has one, and honestly, any tile form factor is better than Airtags. I swear they picked the worst possible shape for it, it just has to make whatever you put it in bulge. You have to buy some sort of case to even use it most of the time, whereas a Tile can pop directly onto your key ring. Airtag can’t ring my phone. I do that frequently. I’ve used both extensively, I’ll keep buying Tiles. Or maybe one of these newer ones. I’d go so far as to say Airtag is only better at finding something that’s been stolen, and that’s just a tiny percent of the use cases. Tile is better in every other way.