Tiles : so many uses..including finding that stolen bag of camera gear.

[ricktas]

Now this is where technology is getting good. I want some, for so many things, including my camera gear bag, and on my dogs collars.

http://www.thetileapp.com/

Will be starting to sell later this year. At present only for iOS devices.

[Dazz1]

Now this is where technology is getting good. I want some, for so many things, including my camera gear bag, and on my dogs collars.

http://www.thetileapp.com/

Will be starting to sell later this year. At present only for iOS devices.

I think it is a BIG mistake leaving out the phone system that has the market majority. What will make this work is for it to be everywhere, so they HAVE to make software for as many different systems as they can. There is no technical reason not to.

All that said, what a SUPERB idea!!!

[rossco]

i have been waiting for these to come up for sale, love the idea. if only i could attach it to my train of thought then i would never lose or , wow such a nice sunny day, ohhhhhhh a puppy

[davsv1]

unless I misunderstood the faq, if it only works to 150' or 45 metres it seems a little useless to me for anything stolen and anything lost around home.......the remote is under the cushion your sitting on...I couldn't imagine losing my laptop or camera at home and anything stolen will be more than 45m away in seconds. Please correct me if am mistaken...ok some other tile user has to be within 50-150 ' and you get a location, it will need a big user base I think

[Boofhead]

Looks like a great idea, just needs a solid user base to make it succeed.

[MattNQ]

So many uses.
Finding the Wife's car keys every 2nd day. Finding her phone when it is flat and lost in the car/handbag/house....etc
I'd stick one on each school shoe & footy boot for each kid so we can have BOTH shoes located before school/football starts
One for each hairbrush in the house....
This could save me HOURS in a week...
Shame I'd have lower myself to use an Apple device...

[Roosta]

So many uses.
Finding the Wife's car keys every 2nd day. Finding her phone when it is flat and lost in the car/handbag/house....etc
I'd stick one on each school shoe & footy boot for each kid so we can have BOTH shoes located before school/football starts
One for each hairbrush in the house....
This could save me HOURS in a week...
Shame I'd have lower myself to use an Apple device...

LOL - I married your identical family..

[arthurking83]

I'm thinking to myself, why use Bluetooth(4.0) and not wifi???

Surely there must be some lower powered wifi chips available that could lead to a 1 year battery life.

Most folks I know turn Bluetooth off on their phones to save power .. but leave wifi on all the time

Even with a massive user base, if Bluetooth is turned off on the phone, the tile is then rendered invisible, so not only is the system dependent on having a wide user base, it's also requires that all those users leave Bt on all the time too.
One problem with Bt4 is that it's not voice capable, so (smart)devices with Bt4 also require the original specification Bt(Bt3 and lower) to operate concurrently for the purpose of wireless connectivity to remote communication devices.
Bt4 is only really useful for low data bandwidth applications, such as this use(proximity sensing) and so on.

The other issue is will it, or the smart device with BT enabled, connect concurrently to multiple devices?
So if a user has Bluetooth enabled on the phone, it's most likely to be for a purpose .. eg. connected to a Bt comms device, or entertainment device of some type. So, the question is, how solidly will the tile device connect to the smart device if the smart device system is already connected via Bt?

Of course then you have the issue of theft of a tiled device.
If the user can easily replace the tile(for the purpose of recycling after a year) .. then surely a thief will also easily remove the tile just as easily and simply discard it .. therefore rendering the tile itself useful only for finding itself .. and not the stolen goods!

[wanderer51]

Wonder if I can stick one on our cat so we can find what wardrobe/cupboard she went in when we opened it?

[rackham]

This is a great idea if used for its intended purpose.

However, how hard would it be to turn it instead into a stalking tool? Surreptitiously put it on someone's car/bag/afro and away you go.