Tile Is Including a Literal SOS Button on Its Trackers

Tile trackers have an odd status. For one, they’ve lengthy been Apple’s principal competitor for its AirTag Bluetooth trackers. On the identical time, these tags have run up towards accusations they facilitate stalking, much more than Apple’s ultra-popular tracker. System maker Life360’s latest Tile trackers now have a button to alert your mates if “one thing is flawed.”

The brand new trackers have a multi-function button that may alert the customers’ pals and the SOS perform within the Tile app if “one thing is flawed.” Press the button 3 times, and it’ll ship a notification describing your emergency to contacts designated within the Life360 app. If you’d like your tracker to contact emergency providers for you with no need to dial 911, you’ll have to pay for a Gold or Platinum Life360 app subscription for $15 or $25 a month. These subscriptions additionally internet you a free tracker and different advantages like crash detection.

The corporate unveiled its first new trackers since Life360 first bought up the brand in 2021. They embrace a $25 Tile Mate and a $35 Tile Professional with a louder ring and a 500-foot vary in comparison with the earlier Professional’s 400-foot vary. There’s an extra wallet-sized Tile Slim and a $25 Tile Sticker. Because the identify suggests, the sticker can purportedly connect to something and permit for Bluetooth monitoring on virtually something. 

Ever wished to trace the place you place your portable power bank? The sticker is perhaps possibility. All of them can be found beginning Monday. The SOS options appear attention-grabbing, however regardless of the brand new built-in panic, it received’t do a lot to cease the accusations that Tile has been fairly lax with its anti-tracking efforts.

Tile has been on-again and off-again in its efforts to discourage stalking with its trackers. The corporate rolled out anti-tracking software again in 2022. Like Apple’s AirTag scanning, the “Scan and Safe” function lets Life360 customers seek for undesirable tags on their individual, although you have to undergo the app. The corporate then applied one other function that allowed customers to make their tags invisible, hiding the trackers from its personal scans. To allow the invisible trackers, customers wanted to supply up biometric information and consent to a possible $1 million lawsuit in the event that they have been convicted of stalking. On the time, Life360 claimed the loophole in its anti-stalking initiative was to assist customers get better stolen objects.

“In contrast to rivals like Airtags and upcoming merchandise suitable with the Google Discover My System Community, Tile doesn’t alert thieves in the event that they steal an merchandise with certainly one of our trackers,” Tile claims in its press launch about its Anti-Theft mode.

Final yr, two girls in Texas who say they have been stalked with the assistance of a Tile tracker helped file a class action lawsuit towards the corporate. The pair of alleged stalking victims claimed the tracker maker “marketed its product each explicitly and implicitly for the aim of monitoring individuals—significantly girls.” In response, Tile says it doesn’t condone stalking with its trackers and works with regulation enforcement when these instances crop up. The corporate additionally claimed on the time it had obtained no reviews of misuse of its anti-theft mode. That case is ongoing, and Tile’s attorneys has argued that the case ought to be moved into arbitration.

So the brand new tags nonetheless don’t assist anyone involved they’re being hounded with the assistance of a Tile tracker. Nonetheless, for many individuals—particularly girls—who dread electronically-enabled stalking, then it may show a considerable, although extremely ironic, peace of thoughts.