Testing Tile - the lost & found app for dummies like me
Does it take you forever to get out of the house when it's time to go?
Tile is for people like me, who can't seem to keep their shit together.
Recently I took a trip to Amsterdam which I blogged about here, here, here and here. As I left the house to catch the bus to the airport I realised I had brought my car keys.
"I'm not going to need those and I'll probably lose them by bringing them!" I thought.
But if I had turned back then I would have probably missed the bus so I carried on.
I have no idea when or where but a week later, the morning after I got back home I realised I had indeed lost my keys.
:'(
After calling the bus company, the local garda station, the airport lost and found, the place I had stayed in and even some of the pubs I had visited in Amsterdam, I eventually had to pay €150 to get a new car key cut as I was too stubborn to have a spare one cut months ago.
I still haven't got a spare cut (and I probably should) but what I do have now that just arrived today is
Tile
Tile is a gadget that you attach to your most treasured (or misplacable) possessions, such as your car keys or your purse or wallet.
There is also a Slim Tile now available, but when I bought mine just last week, I purchased the original. You can choose between 1-pack, 4-pack, or 8-pack depending on your personal needs. I paid $75 for a 4 pack that also included a 3-pack of adhesives for sticking the tile if needed.
So lets put the Tile to the test!
The first thing that I had to do was install the app onto my phone (from the apple store or for android) and register an account through my email.
Next I took out one of my new tiles and following the instructions on the app, I clicked + to add a tile and the bluetooth picked it up. I was then able to name my tile.
..I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy!
So with the Tile in my handbag, which is the item I wish to be able to find, I left the room to test if it would work. Simply click find and it starts to ring!
Lets try it from farther away!
From upstairs I did the same thing again... Oops... It's not ringing. Instead it says "walk around".
So I walked around until the little circle went green and then clicked find. And it rings from downstairs!
What if I lose my phone?!
All I have to do to find my phone is double-click the 'e' at the corner of the Tile and even if my phone is on silent it rings!
BUT
When I switch Bluetooth off on my phone... It won't work. Luckily Bluetooth doesn't use a whole lot of battery on the phone unless you are using it to stream music but I have yet to see if this is going to cause problems for me.
Lets test it again
I switched off my bluetooth and took my freshly Tiled car keys and moved them to another room. Again, the app does not work without the Bluetooth on. When I switch the Bluetooth back on, it takes a few seconds to find the location again, but it finds it!
For me, somebody who is always late and has no excuse apart from "I couldn't find my keys and when I finally found them I had lost my handbag and then I lost my keys again and I got locked in the house and then I got stuck driving behind a tractor, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex gave me a flat tyre and....bla bla bla" so if these new tiles can help me with that then that's all I need!
But the other great thing about Tile is the Community Find feature which connects you with any other Tile users who are within range of your lost item!
So if you're somebody like me who loses things easily, you and I could potentially help eachother out!
:)
Conclusion
So far, the app and the tiles have been working exactly as I expected them to. I have read that the battery should last a year, so I will have to consider if this is something I will want to keep paying annually or if I should JUST GET MY SHIT TOGETHER!
I tested various different distances from the phone to the Tile.
- From the car outside I wasn't in range but when I went outside it rang, but it was harder to hear from inside the car (though I did hear it)
- Strangely there have been a few times where I was right beside the item and it didn't pick it up for a few seconds but as soon as I started walking away it did, and I could ring it.
The fact that I will have to leave my bluetooth on in order to find it may possibly cause problems I have yet to see. As far as I'm aware though, bluetooth uses much less battery than WiFi and I leave my WiFi on constant so I think I'm probably good.
Just think if I had this app a few weeks ago when I lost my car key.... The person who picked it up and never bothered to drop them into a garda station probably didn't have the app either... So either way I'm at a loss.
@beanz
Lol I would lose that along with my cellphone.
My only hope is that I wear a military style dogtag necklace that effectively amounts to a charm bracelet around my neck.
Keys, USB drives you name it!
Already upvoted and followed. So I decided to promote this.
I couldn't reply to your comment about the anti-feminist photo. No that girl isn't me. She's just one girl who was part of a viral trend of anti-feminism. I was pointing it out to make the point that with every "blacklivesmatter" there's a backlash of "alllivesmatter" (as noted by the commenter) but relating it to feminism since that's what I had been writing about.
Ahh OK.
I think it may be getting time to find a better message for everyone. I saw your reply to @casandrarose I think in reality what she was trying to say is that she prefers to celebrate being a woman and a mother.
It's a powerful message to find what you love about yourself and celebrate that. Its 180 degrees away from the divisive message I see repeated over and over again.
I look at all of this as my legacy. The world I leave behind for my children. Is it better because of me? The only way I know to make it better is to expose the mind tricks and manipulations behind any movement and try to give people the tools they need to find their own voice, their own power and use it to affect positive change in the world around them.
I hope I'm having an effect. Its honestly hard to gauge what the effect actually is of a movement that says don't join a movement, be THE movement. Empower others.
Dividing is conquering, but uniting is how you win.
But feminism will never be united. I don't see third wave feminism as a movement to be honest. The first and second maybe, but the third one is just stagnated in conversation. Which is perhaps as it should be. You can't expect the whole world to change to suit everyone. The important thing is that we question things and talk about them.
I hope I didn't sound like I was putting down @casandrarose comment in how I responded. A one-liner probably comes across that way. I appreciated her comment and her point of view regards motherhood, I just don't agree that either sex has any inherent upper hand over the other. I believe all power is given and taken based on our cultural expectation. So I don't believe in celebrating our differences because I believe our differences are just restrictions that teach men not to be emotional and women not to be outspoken.
But we can certainly celebrate how far we've come and celebrate our differences AS PEOPLE (not just between men and women)
And thank you so much for promoting :)
I'm a loyal follower of yours too :p
You're no follower. You're a leader and you always have been. You speak your mind and you don't hold back. We don't always agree on everything. But I admire your courage to speak and I find your views in general to be refreshing.
WOW! Thank you :)
Poor Flo relegated to a background prop.
Oh btw please attach one to Biscuit.
COOL
Hi Anns, you should try to write more insightful comments. You may get mistaken for a bot and flagged.
I can check @anns comments and see it's not a bot :)
Her not it. Right?
Well he or she... I shortened it to it (as in the account) so as not to say he/she.
Just out of laziness.
Although the bots could be getting smarter..............
:/
lol.
We should be allowed to express basic sentiments like that a long as it's legitimate. It's up to us to do our due diligence re: bots, not for users to censor themselves for not being insightful enough.
New product review = value add = upvote :)