Losing you gadgets has become a real problem since the beginning of time, and if anything modern technology has given us more stuff to lose. Start-up Tile wants to fix this with small transmitters that can be tracked using a smartphone.
Everyone has managed to misplace their keys “in a safe place so you will find them later”, just to run around in panic the next day. Or lost the phone or wallet in the laundry basket. While there are ways to prevent this, like sound activated key rings, Tile aims to use a similar concept with the mobile phone as the hub to avoid losing cherished property.
Tile builds on small “tiles” that attaches to surfaces, to a key ring or just goes inside a pocket, bag or such. The tiles can then be tied to your Tile account and an app. If you then lose a gadget with a Tile attached the Tile can send out a Bluetooth signal the app can pick up and use the signal strength to help you find it.
Tile has other features too. Each tile has a speaker that can be activated through the app so that you can listen your way to the gadget instead, and the tiles can be shared with loved ones so that they van also search using their phones. The app does store some information, so if the tile is not within reach the app can tell you where it was when it lost the connection.
If you can’t find the gadget you can mark it as lost. In that case all mobile phones with Tile instead will silently search for the tile attached to the gadget and send coordinates if they come near it – the more people who uses Tiles, the bigger the likelihood of finding it.
Each tile has an integrated battery that lasts a year, after which the tiles needs to be recycled and changed by the maker. Right now only Apple is supported, which according to Tile is because the support for Bluetooth 4.0 is still rather thin on the Android platform and non-existent on Windows Phone.
Tile is currently gathering resources on its website for a full scale launch, and with 73,000 dollar it has surpassed its goal of 20,000 dollar with 25 days to go. Contributions are done by pre-ordering, and you can book from one up to to nine tiles. Deliveries should start around the end of the year.
