I love technology, anything to do with my hands, and my family. My blog, my website site (http://ModernDayFamilyman.com) and my youtube channel (http://youtube.com/moderndayfamilyman) are all great places to get information about the latest and greatest. I go through my trials and tribulations so you don't have to.
Tile Pro 2020 is the Best Bluetooth tracker on the market in 2020. (https://geni.us/TilePro2020 affiliate link) Never lose your keys again. We'll review the device, the setup in the app, the volume of Tile, and the Tile Premium Services.
Tile Pro 2020 is the Best Bluetooth tracker on the market in 2020. (https://geni.us/TilePro2020 affiliate link) Never lose your keys again. We'll review the device, the setup in the app, the volume of Tile, and the Tile Premium Services.
▬ FULL PROS & CONS LIST ▬ https://mdfm.co/TilePro2020ProsCons
Us techies are pretty mad at the CoinX twitter account (who has a 100% track record) cause he‘s the one who said, “but there’s one more thing”
The thing is......He just didn’t say when.
So if you were watching the September Apple event and you’re a techie like me than you were probably bored for most of it. With these incremental updates, you sat there waiting for the “one more thing”, but it never came.
I was for sure it was the Apple Tag. But I was wrong. Here are some possible reasons...
I didn’t think the Apple Tag would use an Ultra-wide band (or UWB) but after checking out the specs of the new iPhones, it now includes an ultra-wide band chip for spatial awareness.
Now if you look up what spatial awareness means you’ll find out that it the ability to be aware of oneself in space.Which to me sounds like a directional guidance system. Like they say, Before you know which way you need to go to find something like an Apple Tag, you have to know where you are first. Which also plays an important part in the AR feature that we are expecting with the Apple Tag.
Back when I tested out the Pixel tracker which also did AR, it required one of the Pixies to be attached iPhone. After a little research online I found out that the Pixel tracker uses UWB and also Bluetooth. If you didn’t have one of the pixies attached to your phone, it wouldn’t work. So as a con to the product to always had this attachment on the back of your phone and in addition, it didn’t have buzzer so finding your tracker was only able to be done by AR.
So it sounds to me that the Apple tag will have UWB and Bluetooth. Which will demise the number of users that could use the AR feature but since it still uses Bluetooth it will still allow the 900 million plus users still be able to track your Apple Tag.
I just hope Apple doesn’t mess up by forgetting the buzzer in the AppleTag. Don’t get me wrong, finding stuff with AR is cool, but in most cases, you can find your tracker much faster with sound.
2. iOS 13 is supposed to be released on September 19th and the new Apple Tag might not work on older OS’s that don’t have the new “Find My” app.Apple is also planning on releasing iOS 13.1 on Sept 30th which seems a bit of rush. Maybe whatever the issue is maybe they had to rush it in time for Apple’s special October Event next month.
That’s right, I think Apple will have another special event in October like they’ve done before, except for 2015 & 2017. This is when I think they will release the new Apple Tag.
If you want to learn more about what Apple Tag is and how it can help you find all your misplace and lost items, Check out this video right here.
Another small update I’m hearing about the Apple Tag is that the competition is ganging up.
The next largest competitor is Tile who announced a partnership with Google to incorporate their finding technology with Google Assistant.You can already ask Google Assistant devices to ring you tile but your phone still had to be within Bluetooth range of your tile, but this new incorporation will allow google assistant hubs to ring your tile, even when your phone is not around.
Which to me is not anything amazing. Most google assistant devices are in your home and your phone is probably already there too. But what this does do is open the door to a big partnership where Google could build a similar system like Apple and their AppleTag pretty quickly.Well just have to wait and see.
Let me if you're going to get an Apple Tag and what you will put it on, in the comments below.
If you want to learn more about what I think the Apple tag and will do to the competition, like Tile, Chipolo, Trackr, and many others. Click on the video right here.
There are 100s hundreds of the Bluetooth trackers on the market, and in general, they all help you find your lost or misplaced items. Like your keys, your wallet, or your purse. If you misplace your item, you simply go into the app, hit the find button, and it will ring your device if it's within Bluetooth range.
Once you hear it, you walk in that direction, and you find your device. All is good in the world!
You can also do it in reverse. If you lose your phone, you can simply press the button on the Bluetooth tracker to make your phone ring.
But what if your device is out of the Bluetooth range?
A lot of devices have a crowd community feature that allows you to mark your item as lost and if another user gets within range of your Bluetooth tracker, it will anonymously report back the GPS location of the connection. You go to that location, look for Bluetooth tracker, and all is good in the world.
Now the advantage of the Apple Tag is not the Apple Tag itself. It's the device that 900 million people in the world are carrying in their pocket. There iPhone!
Plus all the other Apple devices like MacBooks and iMac that make up this mess network of apple devices.
They can all connect to the Apple Tag via Bluetooth or some other technology (more on that in the moment) and then once the connection is made it will report the GPS location of the connection back to you. The game-changer is the number of active users looking for your lost item.
In comparison, the next largest tracker community is Tile which has an estimated 15 to 20 million active users. With the Apple Tag, it's 900 million +.
Naming convention
Now that we understand what a Bluetooth tracker is let's back up for a moment.
Apple Tag is not the official name yet. It was a name that rumors made up (including myself) after a developer with the Beta edition of IOS 13 found coding with the word tag1,1 in the most recent combined app now called "find my" app. Which was originally "find my iPhone" and "find my friends" app. Together as one now and with the new Apple Tag, it can find a lot of missed place and lost items in the world.
But when comes that name we are still not really sure. Since tag 1,1 was in the coding, all the rumors include the word "TAG" like iTag and AirTag, but your iTag is already a name of a Bluetooth tracker out there in the market. (Don't waste your time) And AirTag is the name of a lot of different companies for already business. Plus the word AirTag doesn't make sense. AirPods worked cause Airpods sound like "EAR" pods, and they went into your ears, but AirTag doesn't go into your ears. What will it be, we just have to wait and see.
Is it Bluetooth?
So like I mentioned it could be using a different way to communicate. There are other communication chips in your iPhone already like Wi-Fi and NFC but not but neither of these chips will work in the Apple Tag due to battery consumption and range limitation, respectively. But Apple could be releasing a long-range communication standard in there new iPhone 11, like Ultra-Wideband technology but I don't think they will do that. Not only will this diminish the number of active users in the crowd community but that also reduce the number of people that will be willing to buy the AppleTag, and I can see that being a failure if they do so. Now that doesn't mean they aren't tweaking Bluetooth technology to use it to their advantage as they have done before iBeacon. But the underlying technology but still be Bluetooth Low Energy.
Design
When it comes to the design, there're a lot of rumors about it being round, and I think' that's going to be true. It's going to be white and has some small way to attach to things like your keys. I don't think it's going to be thin enough to be able to put into your wallet though, but I know people will still try to do it.
They're all going to have that big old fat wallet.
I think it's going to be a pretty flat item overall, maybe with a couple of curves here and there because there's gotta be a way to be able to attach the Apple Tag to more items, like bikes laptops, luggage, and other personal belongings that you want to track.
It's going to have a replaceable battery. I don't see Apple Tag having a way to recharge yet, and I also don't see them making a device that gets thrown away every year, forcing you to buy a new one. They are not going to make the same mistake that Tile did with their original trackers.
I'm hoping the battery should last at least one year. It's going to have a loud ringer, so you find it faster and easier. And it should be water-resistant. In future designs, it will get thinner and move into a wireless rechargeable model like Safedome.
Pricing
Most of the top 10 Bluetooth tractors in the world cost between $14.99 in $49.99, depending on brand and model — most averaging around $25 for your keys and 40 dollars for your wallet trackers. But being Apple, I don't think they're about being average. I think they're pricey the Apple Tag at $59.99 for one device or two for $99.99. Very expensive but worth it if you misplace and lose yours belongs all the time as I do.
Subscription plan
Will Apple do a subscription plan……. UMMMM… No! Tile made that mistake.
Even though Apple loves their subscription models, I don't see them charging for additional features or services with the Apple Tag.
The Additional features
Talking about additional features, there are a bunch of features they could add to the Apple Tag but I think they will keep it very simple. No selfie remotes here.
They will have one very important, though! Out of range notification.
Which means if you leave your Apple Tag behind, say at a restaurant, as you walk away, your phone will buzz to let you know to go back and get it, and vice versa. But to make it effective and not drive people crazy, they will have to figure out a way to eliminate false notifications. Bluetooth is very finicky, and there are a lot of obstructions and environmental factors that could drop the Bluetooth signal for a split second, which will trigger the out of range notification.
Thus they need to put in timer delays and quiet or safe zones to make sure your device doesn't go off at the wrong place or time. You don't want your phone ringing in a business meeting or while you are sleeping. So they will have quiet or zones bases off of your location, like work and home, but it will still look for your Apple Tag once you have left one of these locations, to make sure you have the Apple Tag and the device that it's attached to, with you. The timer delay will work when your away from your safe zone to help prevent false alerts. This timer delay will operate by delaying the notification alert for about a minute to see if the connection comes back. If it does, it won't sound the notification, but if it doesn't come back within that minute, it will then send the notification, thus being a slight delay, but totally worth it cause you won't get the false notifications.
One more thing…
Another expected feature is AR. Augmented Reality can really help you find your lost or misplaced item in a whole different way. I demonstrated this feature in a similar tracker that has AR, called the Pixie. Once you activate it, you can move your phone around and see in which direction your misplaced Apple Tag is in Augmented Reality. Pretty cool and very useful if you lose your Apple Tag in the couch and even help the hearing impaired.
With all these features and the enormous crowd finding community with over 900 million iPhones users. The Apple Tag will charge the way you find your misplaced or lost items FOREVER. What will you put you Apple Tag on?
If you want to learn more about what the Apple Tag will do to the Bluetooth tracker industry and competitors like Tile, Chipolo, TrackR and many others, check out this video right here.
Click the SUBSCRIBE BUTTON for more Apple Tag and other Bluetooth tracker updates. Thanks for watching!
COME COMMENT ON THIS NEW VIDEO AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO PUT YOUR APPLE TAG ON.
Every year around September companies start announcing and releasing new products for the 4th quarter of the year. Aka Q4. Meaning the holiday season. The busiest time of the year for retail purchases. Every company wants to advertise and promote their products and the best way to do that is with something new and cool to get everybody's attention. Tile, Inc. has done that just about every year for the past few years. They release the Tile Slim, the slimmest bluetooth tracker of it's time and then the new Tile Mate. The redesigned of its hit tracker, the Tile. A perfect bluetooth tracker for your keys and pretty much anything else you can glue it on to. Then last year, they release their new Tile Pro Series featuring the Tile Sport and the Tile Style. Both of which really out did the competition when it came to distance.
This year Tile, Inc. will be releasing something new. What it is is till unknown but by being the top reviewer of bluetooth trackers, I have my hypothesis. 1. a Tile Slim Pro - Similar to Tile Slim but thinner, louder, and with better range. 2. a Tile with a replaceable battery The more I think about it, I think its going to be number 2. Tile's biggest compliant is that you have to buy a new tracker every year. Yes, you can get one cheaper through its re-Tile program but no matter which way you look it, it is a subscription model. Consumers these days, including myself, are sick and tired of a subscription models. I want to buy it once and have it forever. Thus, I think Tile is going to have two models with one tracker. They have announced that they are rolling out Tile Premium Service. (only for iOS devices, Android coming soon) A service that includes, Smart Alerts, Location History and Unlimited Sharing:
Smart Alerts lets you know when you leave home without your Tiles or Tile-enabled devices.
Location History shows you where your Tiles or Tile-enabled devices have been for the last 30 days.
Unlimited Sharing allows you to share your Tile with as many trusted friends and family members as you want.
It's going to cost an user $2.99 USD a month or $29.99 a year to subscribe to the Tile Premium Service. But it's not something that you have to subscribe to unless you want those services. So many users will just buy a Tile with a replaceable battery and use it the way they currently have been. If Tile can get enough people to subscribe to these new services though, then it will be a win win situation for both Tile and the consumer.
I personally love the idea of Smart Alerts, which alerts you of leaving your tracker behind. So if you leave your keys or your wallet behind, your phone will ring. If you leave your phone behind, your tracker will beep. I actually use another brand of tracker more often becasue they already have these types of alerts enabled. Tile tried last year to get their Smart Alerts working but as a beta user of the service, it never worked. Now they want to start these service again, I'm super excited but now knowing they are going to charge for it, I'm very disappointed. Yes, it will also be great to have location history but at 30 bucks a year, its not worth it.
All is all, I hope Tile, Inc. releases a Tile with a replaceable battery and let consumers decided if they want the additional services, but at least we are not throwing away devices that still work.
