Tile has been the leader in item tracking for years now, and recently they have come out with a Tile device that’s in a form factor that will allow you to track almost anything. It’s called the Tile Sticker.
This Tile is tiny. It’s about the size of a quarter and has the thickness of three quarters. But the real magic is that it can be affixed to anything using the adhesive (which was apparently co-developed with 3M) to anything and is waterproof. That makes the use cases for this particular tile endless. The fact that it is waterproof comes at a cost, which is that the battery unlike some other Tile variants is not replaceable. More on that in a moment.
The Tile Sticker claims to have a 150 foot range. I did real-world testing by going to a storage locker facility and placing it in a closed storage locker at the end of a long hallway that was about 100 feet in length. The iPhone app found it very quickly, and the built-in speaker was loud enough that I could hear the alarm playing.
Downsides? The battery lasts three years and isn’t user replaceable. That basically makes this a subscription service as opposed to be something that you can use long term. The flip side to that is the fact that when your Tile does run out of juice, they do have a program called reTile that allows you to replace your Tile at a discount of up to 50%. The new Tile will come with a prepaid envelope so that you can send back the old one to recycle. But that’s only true for those in the US. For those anywhere else on Earth, you can drop off your old Tile at your local e-recycling center.
The Tile Sticker goes for $39.99 USD for a pair. That makes them $20 USD a copy which is a fair price given the fact that the use cases are pretty much endless. That makes this Tile the best one that the company has come out with yet.