Tile Sport 2017
Find your gear anytime, anywhere. Reliable and durable, Tile Sport attaches to anything you don’t want to lose and helps you find it, wherever life takes you. Tile requires installation of the Tile App on iOS or Android, registration for a Tile account and acceptance of Tile’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service (available at Tile.com). Payment required to access additional Premium services.
- Ring it, find it: Tile Sport has a 200 feet range that’s 2X our current tiles. Plus, it’s even louder than ever, making it easy to find when it’s nearby
- Find your phone: Double tap the button on your tile Sport and your phone will begin to ring even on silent, see it on a map
- Your very own search party: With millions of users, the tile community can help you find your things, fast wherever they are
- Ready for anything: Waterproof and durable, tile Sport stands upto the elements. Waterproof : IP68 (1.5 meter for 30 minutes)
- Weight: 6.1 grams, Size: 34 x 34 x 4.65 millimetre, Sound: 88 decibel melody. Technology: Bluetooth LE
P –
I’ll begin by saying that I love the Tile products and use them A LOT! I use original TIle and the Tile Mate every day, nine of them, and they make my life much more manageable. That said, however, my experience with the Slim has been terrible. I’ve had it in my wallet for several months now and it has always only worked intermittently. More often than not it is unable to be found by the app. It seems to be always searching. It’ll literally be sitting right next to my keys and the Tile Mate on my keys will be found and ringing within seconds of pulling up the app, I’ll find the keys and see the wallet and the app will STILL be searching and will eventually give up. Some times it will not have communicated with my wallet for up to two weeks at a time.Today the app connected to the Tile Slim, it began to ring and as I was walking up the stairs it quit; the app had lost connection. It took another ten minutes to connect while I was searching within the same room.I don’t know what the technical difference is between the slim and the others, and I only have the one slim, but it is just not the same.
Hart –
I apologize for the length of this review, I wanted to be thorough and not cut any corners.I’d like to get something straightened out right up front. This is not a GPS powered device that reports its location to the app on your phone. There seems to be some confusion or misunderstanding where people think they can track their dog or child. Unless the Tile which is attached to either the dog or child is within range of a phone running the app all Tile devices are useless. The Tile does not report location information, that’s done by a phone running the app that has it’s GPS receiver turned on. The app takes the GPS location from the phone where it sees the Tile and sends that to the system servers. The alternative is to attach a Tile and phone to the dog or child with the app running… That said, if the phone doesn’t have it’s location service turned on the Tile app can’t send in any information on where the Tile is.TL;DR – Great idea that works very well with enough phones around running the app but extremely intrusive and Tile says they will share your demographic info even though you paid for the Tile.The way all Tile devices operate is to report through ANY phone running the app. The app then transmits the Tile ID, any Tile, along with the phone GPS location information to the servers which then allow you to locate X (purse, keys, back pack). From a technical perspective this is a brilliant idea, the umbrella becomes huge but it’s only deployed wherever there are phones running the app. Without these phones/app combinations the devices are useless pieces of plastic with a battery. You could be in an open field with 400 phones, if none of them have the app installed and running the Tile is useless.In metropolitan areas where many people use phones with the app running it almost offers blanket coverage. While a Tile will report through someone else’s phone they will not be able to see it. This transaction of your Tile working through their phone works in the background. In this way there is security, other people can’t see your Tile or it’s location.In rural areas where there are no phones with the app running all Tile devices are useless. Your dog could be 100 feet away from you on the other side of a metal building and your phone can’t communicate with it. This is a simple RF technology limitation. The 200 foot range stated is under the best possible conditions and is reliant on your phones BT transceiver. In my testing I was able to get about 120 feet, in the open, from the Tile and still make it ring. This can be and is compromised, if either the phone or Tile, have or are near things like metal backed phones cases, metal items in a purse, and especially if up against your body. So yes the range is much better than previous versions but still susceptible to the same things that limit range on any device that uses radio signals (Bluetooth is a radio signal device, this is how wireless operation is achieved).The above is simply an outline of how the Tile system works and its limitations. Once data reaches the Tile service there is good stuff that happens, like being able to locate your lost keys.Where I have a problem with this set up is the TOS that Tile makes you agree too. Yes all social media tracks your demographic information, but none to the exact extent that Tile does and none of them charge you. The difference here is that you PAY to buy the Tile so you are in effect paying them to access your demographic information and use it anyway they see fit as per the TOS which includes selling it to third parties. Don’t believe me, install the app and then before just clicking through everything, read it from start to finish. They spread things out through the various sections so read the whole thing. There are so many screen shots that they can’t all be posted here. So, when you use Facebook or any social media app you’re doing so for free. It could be argued by them that giving access to where you live, work, go to church, walk the dog, eat most frequently, or shop for groceries is payback for you using their services. Tile makes you pay to give them that information.Their TOS states that they can and will sell your demographic info to third parties. Again the difference here is that they get pin point GPS info on your comings and goings, something that Facebook can be shut out of if you don’t give the app access to your location information. This is the same for all social media apps. The Tile service can give far greater location info. In 3 minutes my BlackBerry with DTEK security detected 89 requests for location info, that’s a lot. With this and a good GPS signal on your phone they could tell which part of your property you spend the most amount of time in.On the up side:The app is nice and fluid, easy to set up and use. It’s been well designed and looks good. To locate your phone by using the Tile the app does have to be running in the background which does use up a little more battery power. The Tile Sport itself does ring a lot louder than the other Tiles I have when you go looking for it in the app. It is somewhat thicker than previous versions but it also looks a lot less like a Tile, more of a key fob design, I happen to like the look.The location information provided is fairly accurate, as accurate as something can be that could theoretically be up to 200 feet from the device marking its location. This means that when you reach the point where your keys should be you will still need to search a good sized area but at least you have a chance to find the keys, kids, back pack, or whatever its attached to.The Tile will function for about a year on one battery which is great but you can’t replace it. You need to take part of their program when you BUY a replacement albeit for less than a new device.End result is that this is a brilliant idea that can and has helped many people locate lost items, no doubt saving a lot of money. Anyone who purchases a Tile device has to decide of this service is worth it in regards to giving away all that very personal information.So before you buy or use the system make sure you understand just how invasive the service is and what can be done with your information.
Keith Hosman –
Well, this thing’s a nightmare. A) The set up alone will drive you bonkers, B) Once set up, the phone doesn’t ring like it’s supposed to when I “double click” the tile, C) The app continually says the tile is near – it won’t “lead you” to your tile like it shows on the video. Well, what good is that? It’s not just about “finding my keys across town” – it’s also “find my keys somewhere in this house” – and it doesn’t work.What a piece of garbage. Great graphics and packaging… for a piece of garbage.Oh, yeah – and the battery isn’t replaceable – so it’ll go dead at some point and then you get to go through all of this again to set it up.Run away from this, run far, far away. I’m sending it back.
Hilary –
We strap a Tile onto our tortoises and find them in the yard every night!
LP –
Upgraded to the Sport model from the regular Tile when it finally gave out. Like the fact that the alarm is louder on the Sport, plus the beefed-up cover will probably last longer than the regular Tile’s exterior (it began to peel within weeks of use). The Tile has saved me, husband, and son all quite a bit of time looking for car keys – that, alone, is worth the purchase price. On a recent fishing trip, our son’s keys worked out of his pocket as he & his dad were carrying their gear to their fishing spot. Dad was about to go into full-blown panic mode, as they were literally in the middle of a state park, miles from civilization. Kid used his phone with the Tile app to locate the keys as they retraced their steps – within 10 minutes, keys were found, car was loaded and they were on their way home. Tile saved the day!
Strongman –
Let me just start by saying I’ve tried several tracking devicesTileTrackRSunny&Luckyand Tile is the best so far.Pro’sSetup is fairly easyWorks as advertisedHas crowd support (for finding your Tile)Con’sDrains your smart phone battery (really quick .. about 5x more than normal for me)Disabling the Tile works to stop battery drain, but re-setup is difficultSo after using Tile Sport for 2 months now ..I have uninstalled it entirely so my mobile phone can actually be mobile (without always charging)Hence only 3 starsI wish there was a setting to manually set the bluetooth pings (ex. every 30 mins) to help with battery drain.** UPDATE ** I finally just removed all together .. the battery drain on me & wifes phones was just too much.A lot happier now that we have removed the app, and threw away the tiles
Len –
I rarely gI’ve something 5 stars but this product is absolutely outstanding. The upgrades including increased range and volume were essential and I’m glad the manufacturer finally did it.The number of times I’ve used this product to find missing components are far too many to mention. I have tagged my keys, wallet, expensive music components, computers, even a job site trailer.No brainer – buy it
nerium2014donna –
The Sport Tile Mate finds your keys and your phone. It’s a lifesaver for my 19 year old! Great purchase…great value.
John T. Sostak –
The only thing worse then misplacing your keys or phone is misplacing your keys and phone and having Tile and it doesn’t work most of the time. And I bought a 2 pack so I can be double frustrated. I contacted them for a refund through the app about a month after I bought these from here on Amazon. They ignored my request. So add that to the list of ways Tile is terrible. This is a bad product sold by a bad company.
Sandra Dalo –
Very awesome product! I use it on my dogs. Took me about 5 minutes to set up including downloading the app
jamatkin –
Works great easy to find phone. Only fault why did they not make it so you can change the battery ? JA
jonawi_68 –
product was as described brand new and for half of the price retail. everything works as expected.
theelectricd –
Was supposed to be cosmetic package but everything looks top notch retail ready to me.