There are quite a few Bluetooth trackers on the market, all designed to help you keep track of your keys, wallets or generally anything!

Market leader Tile has just given their bestselling product, Tile Mate, an impressive update.

What does Tile Mate do?

Tile is a Bluetooth tracker, if you have heard of Tile you will probably know its ‘controversial feature’ – on previous models the battery was not changeable. This was done for many reasons but mainly to create a reliable product. As the biggest downfall of most of these products is the battery.

Fast forward to today and sustainability is key, even in smart home tech. Tile listened and created the updated Tile Mate – the first Tile with a changeable battery.

The battery is a standard CR1632 and will last 12 months, as before if the battery is low it will let you know. If you subscribe to the Premium service, it will even send you a replacement battery.

When updating the design, Tile also boosted the features, it is now louder than before and has an impressive range of 45 Meters.

The new Tile Mate still features a lost mode, if you mark an item as lost in the app other users apps can update you on its location.

How easy is it to setup?

Very simple, setup is done by pressing the tile and opening the app. The app then activates the tile and its ready to go.

To setup with Alexa or Siri there are a few additional steps but again nothing complicated.

What’s the connectivity?

Tile works via Bluetooth LE.

It also connects to a range of smart home assistants (Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri) allowing you to ask them to find your keys. Great if you cant even find your phone and need to find your keys!

How much does Tile Mate Cost?

Tile Mate cost £20 or a 4-pack for £54.99. This is good value for money if you consider how much time is often wasted looking for lost items.

Tile also have a service called Tile Premium, this includes a range of additional features for example notifications if you leave home without your keys.

Premium also includes free automatic battery replacement and costs £30 a year or £2.99 a month and can be purchased in the app.

You can  buy the new Tile mate on Amazon.

Tile Mate with Replaceable Battery

What’s it like living with Tile Mate?

Tile is brilliant!

We gave the new Tile Mate a good test – the range is spot on as advertised and the volume very handy.

What are our final thoughts?

Great evolution of an already good product. We are often losing our keys and Tile solves the problem. Now with the changeable battery this truly deserves 5*.

For more information or to buy a Tile check out Amazon.

While updating the battery Tile also improved the tech, creating an industry pioneering Bluetooth range of 150 feet for Tile Mate and 300 feet for Tile Pro. The volume of both devices was also increased.

“Listening to our customers plays a huge role in our development process, and we’ve consistently received one request: the desire for a replaceable battery. With the new Mate and Pro, we’re excited to introduce our first-ever replaceable battery model and our best-performing Tiles ever.”

Said CJ Prober, Chief Executive Officer – Tile.

In addition to the new devices they have released an improved Tile Premium subscription service. Tile Premium comes with 6 extra services, for £2.99 a month or £29 annually. The service has a 30-day trial and can be cancelled at any time with no commitment.

The added services are:

• Free battery replacement service
• Smart Alerts (BETA) – This feature alerts you if you leave the house without your item – perfect for keys or wallet!
• Unlimited Sharing – Allowing multiple users to manage the same item
• Location history – Industry leading 30-day location history
• Extended warranty – increased from 1 to 3 years
• Premium Customer Care – in addition to email and online users can txt.

  The improved Tile Pro retails for £29.99 and the improved Tile Mate £19.99 and is available now. For more information visit Tile.com

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How often do you lose your keys or wallet? Tile want to make this problem a thing of the past. They have a range of different Tiles for different purposes, in this review we are looking at Tile Pro Style.

For more information of the differences between Tiles look at our article – Tile Pro vs Tile Mate.

What does Tile Pro do?

Tile Pro is a Bluetooth tracker that connects to a smart phone app. The app then lets you ring the items. Cleverly you can also use the tile to ring your phone, so it works both ways.

Tile Pro is louder than its counterparts making it easier to hear if under the sofa and is also water proof to 1.5 M for 30 minutes.

One problem with Bluetooth trackers or location stickers is the distance is not quite good enough. That is not the case with Tile, it has a range of 61 meters, if the Tile is out of range the app shows ‘last place seen’.  However the really clever part comes into it if you misplace the item, as other users app’s can update your items location!

The part that makes this so impressive is the amount of users they have – they state on their website ‘more than 10 million Tiles sold’, impressive numbers especial as all these users can help you find your items.

We tested it in a small village in the UK and were very surprised to see 1,389 people were using Tile. This is pretty powerful as it means these people can help us find your items. Tile call these users you ‘search team’.

How easy is it to setup?

Super easy in 4 steps:

1) Install the app, for both ios and Android
2) Place the tile near your phone
3) Press the tile logo on the tile
4) Name the tile on the app

As its a sealed unit there was no headache with a battery or activating.

What’s the connectivity?

Tile Pro works on Bluetooth low energy, it is also works with Alexa via a skill

“Alexa, ask Tile to find my keys”

How much does Tile Pro Cost?

A single Tile Pro cost £30 or a twin pack is £50 (Get it here)

Tile Pro

However Tile’s battery cannot be changed – it has a guaranteed life of 1 year, after this you can use their ‘ReTile program‘ to get a replacement with ‘up to 40% off’.

Another good point is Tile is 99% recyclable.

What’s it like living with Tile Pro?

Really good! Tile has thought long and hard about the design, usage and app, small things like the phone can be rang from Tile even if its on silent – taking it out of silent mode.

The tile looks great and not out of place as a stylish key ring.

What are our final thoughts?

At first we were very sceptical especially with the built in obsolescence, however after using it and many of its competitors it makes sense as it creates a product they can guarantee.

We are now hooked and will be getting more tiles to add to our collection!

For More information check out Tile’s website: Tile.com

( For best prices check out their website direct )

If you have not heard of Tile before it’s a small Bluetooth tracker that uses Bluetooth Low Energy (LE). It is attached to items like keys or bags to help you find them when you have misplaced them using their app.

Tile comes with a handy community feature. If another user of Tile walks past your item marked as lost you get an alert on the location. Seeing as they have sold 10 Million of these devices they have a lot of users making this a potentially useful feature.

However take into consideration Tile has only officially been on sale in the UK since February 2016. It’s been on sale in USA since 2013 so how many of these 10 Million are in the UK we do not know.

The new Tile Pro series comes in two types:

Pro Sport

Pro Style
Both are slightly larger than the previous Tile mate and Tile slim. The idea with the Pro series is it is clipped to the item rather than put in a wallet.

Not only has the design had an upgrade but so has the features and functionality.

The range has been doubled from 30M / 100 feet to a impressive 60M / 200 feet. To put it into context that is over the length of 5 London busses!!

The volume has been doubled, allowing you to hear your tile more easily when looking for it.

The waterproofing has also been increased from IP67 to IP68 ( if you don’t understand IP rating reading our What is IP rating guide). This means it can be underwater at a depth of 1.5M for one hour.

Along with hardware updates the app has been upgraded adding:

• Volume control
• Custom rings
• Updated proximity meter

One super interesting addition to us is the integration with Smart Home tech.

Tile now works with Google Assistant and very soon Amazon Alexa.

You will be able to say to Alexa “Alexa, ask Tile to ring my keys”. If they keys are not in range it will return the last location.

For best prices and offers buy direct, their website is: https://www.thetileapp.com/

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