Clip a tile Bluetooth tracker to your luggage, lose it, and if the Tile network can’t find it, then the company will pay you up to $1,000 in reimbursment. The goal of the new Tile Premium Protect plan is to demonstrate how confident the maker of these trackers is in its network.
But the offer isn’t available to every Tile owner.
It’s part of the new Tile Premium Protect service plan. This costs $100 a year, on top of the cost of the hardware.
Tile Premium Protect is like insurance. Sort of.
Finding a lost item in your home depends on your iPhone (or Android) contacting the tracker over Bluetooth. The most recent version is good for up to 400 feet.
Outside the home, the Tile application running on other people’s phones can locate your lost item. You’ll get a notification of the location. Tile points out that with 30 million trackers sold so far, there are plenty of devices to help with the search.
And that’s the point of the new Tile Premium Protect plan. If the Tile Network can’t fund your lost item within 7 days, you can receive reimbursement up to $1,000. There are some caveats, though. No pets. No drones or guns or drugs, either. And no antiques, for some reason.
Plus, the just-announced plan comes with the same perks as Tile Premium ($30 a year). That’s alerts when you leave a Tile behind, free batteries, and a location history of your item.
Despite Wednesday’s announcement, the Tile Premium Protect plan is not yet on Tile’s web site.
Tile prepares to face Apple AirTags
This new protection plan is apparently part of Tile’s efforts to get ready to compete with Apple AirTags. Rumors of these rival trackers have been circulating for months, and they are finally expected to launch this autumn.
As tracking AirTags will be embedded into iPhone, iPad and other Apple devices, Tile has been complaining about anticompetitive behavior to both the US and the EU. Apparently in response, Apple in June announced a plan to allow third-party item trackers to connect to the Find My Network.
