Tile is a “community-powered” finding platform that leverages the power of millions of users to help them find their valuables. They are now introducing smart home integration in the next generation of the Tile Mate and Tile Pro.
The new integration allows users to sync their Tile account with their smart home assistant and thereafter users can ask their digital assistant to find their Tile-attached items. It is as simple as saying “OK Google, ask Tile to find my keys” and the Tiled item will ring — hopefully it is somewhere you can hear it.
The Tile platform also enables its users to ask their digital assistant to help locate their phone through the reverse ring feature, or announce where their Tiled item was last located. The aim is to allow users to use multiple devices and platforms to be able to find their Tiled items, and not just their smartphone anymore.
Millions of users already trust us to safeguard their belongings and find misplaced items. However, this feature enables us to dramatically improve Tile functionality in the home. Smart Home integration provides Tile the opportunity to solve a major pain point for our users who are always on the go.CJ Prober, CEO of Tile
The two products which will support this new functionality are the Tile Mate and the Tile Pro. The Tile Mate is a “versatile and lightweight” finder that can be attached to everyday items and the Tile Pro provides greater durability and performance and is suitable to larger items such as expensive handbags or sports gear.
Tile Mate and Pro are available from Harvey Norman, Officeworks and JB HI-FI. If you are someone who is often misplacing their gear maybe this is the solution for you, especially now with this faster Google Assistant (and Alexa) integration.
Yes both Google and Alexa have had this skill for months now (so it’s nothing new) but it’s still not accessible for Alexa in Australia – something the article doesn’t mention…
Hi Phill,
In answer to your question, there are about 6600 people who have tiles “near me”, according to the app. I’m in Melbourne and Tile says “near me” is about a 20-30 minute drive in any given direction.
I’ve never had to use it to find anything actually properly lost so I can’t comment on how effective they would be. It’s mostly just been useful to quickly find stuff around the house that I might have spent another 5minutes looking for.
Articles about Tile often assume that your Tile is always findable, somehow, and gloss over or ignore how the finding party actually works. Your Tile is located if someone else with a Tile happens to have been near enough to it to be detected. This is Bluetooth so “near” needs to be about 10m. I don’t believe enough people are carrying Tiles for this to be at all likely. Is there any Australian data that supports Tile’s findability claims?
Google assistant commands were available on my tile since last year. Not sure if something changed recently