The IT Nerd

Tile has announced their Scan and Secure feature. Which is their version of what Apple has done to discourage the use of AirTags as tracking devices in situations like stalking. This feature allows anyone to check for the presence of Tile devices in close proximity to them that don’t belong to them. Instructions on how to use it can be found here, and it can be used by anyone simply by downloading the Tile app. I took a look at the instructions and it seems a bit of a chore to use. I say that because of this:

The scan requires you to walk/move or drive a certain distance away from your original location (the feature does not work properly if you circle around one location, such as walking inside your home). Your safety while completing the Scan and Secure feature is very important to us. Please use caution while walking/moving/driving when using the feature. If you choose to drive during the scan, please avoid looking at your phone while driving.

Once started, the scan will continue and your phone will not go ‘to sleep’. When the scan is complete, please park your car in a safe place before reviewing the results.  If you choose to walk or use a bike (or any similar transportation mode such as a scooter) while running the scan, please remain aware of your surroundings and be careful around traffic.

That really sounds like any user who thinks that they might have an unwanted Tile tracker on their person has to hop through hoops to confirm or deny that. And I truly wonder if this will truly work as designed as Apple’s solution to this problem seems way more elegant. The only way to find out is to test this for myself. Now I checked my Tile app and I didn’t have this feature. But it is apparently rolling out over the next couple of weeks. Thus when I do get it, I’ll test this out and let you know how well this works or doesn’t work. Stay tuned for that.

Here’s a new one. Life 360 who now owns the Tile Bluetooth trackers say that sales are down, and their stock value has fallen. But it’s all Apple’s fault because of the fact that AirTags can be used to stalk people. This is what Life 360 CEO Chris Hull said:

“We’re watching the privacy concerns relating to Apple AirTags and stalking risks,” Hull told investors on a call on Thursday.

“The scrutiny Apple is facing in the press is moderating growth of the category overall.”

While Hull was careful to point out the news does not change Life360’s ability to drive subscription growth through the Tile integration, he noted it could slow down the company’s hardware sales strategy and had in fact already hit Tile’s sales numbers.

“This may be a headwind for standalone hardware sales until the situation resolves and the category is able to more fully emerge,” he said.

I call BS on that because this is the same company that sells the precise location data of their customers as part of their business model. And when that came to light they had to alter what data they sold because of the blowback from the public. So perhaps the truth is that it’s not Apple’s fault, it’s the business model that is at fault. Because while Apple doesn’t disclose how many AirTags they sell, anecdotal evidence suggests that they are selling just fine unlike Tile trackers. So maybe Mr. Hull needs to get his house in order as clearly the purchase of Tile isn’t paying dividends.

Last week I wrote about Life360 and their purchase of Tile. In that writeup, I mentioned this:

But I suspect that Tile users may want to be ready for Life360’s rather craptastic privacy policy. Life360 data harvests and sells your data (including location data). My sense is that this will mean that Tile users will likely defect to other solutions. 

Well, there are more details about the way they handle data. And the details don’t paint Life360 in a positive light:

Through interviews with two former employees of the company, along with two individuals who formerly worked at location data brokers Cuebiq and X-Mode, The Markup discovered that the app acts as a firehose of data for a controversial industry that has operated in the shadows with few safeguards to prevent the misuse of this sensitive information. The former employees spoke with The Markup on the condition that we not use their names, as they are all still employed in the data industry. They said they agreed to talk because of concerns with the location data industry’s security and privacy and a desire to shed more light on the opaque location data economy. All of them described Life360 as one of the largest sources of data for the industry. 

And this doesn’t help Life360’s cause either:

Meanwhile, selling location data has become more and more central to the company’s health as it’s struggled to achieve profitability. In 2016, the company made $693,000 from selling data it collected. In 2020, the company made $16 million—nearly 20 percent of its revenue that year—from selling location data, plus an additional $6 million from its partnership with Arity. 

So Tile users, this is who has purchased your location tracking service. They don’t sound like the best people, and I for one would interested to see how Life360 responds to this so that their purchase of Tile doesn’t go down the tubes.

On Sunday, I read an article where Tile claimed that they were doing well against AirTags. And that their business is doing well. Well, 24 hours later, the news is out that Tile is selling itself to Life360 for $205 million. To put that in perspective, Apple has $1.2 billion in revenues a day. So read into that what you will.

Here’s why Life360 bought Tile:

Life360 bills itself as an overall family safety app, with location sharing between family members, crash detection, and other features. Over the summer, it announced that it has over 1 million paying customers and reported its valuation had crossed $1 billion. It also acquired another item locating hardware startup, Jiobit, which makes cellular-connected trackers for kids and pets. 

Life360 expects the deal will increase the global footprint for both companies, Tile’s non-Bluetooth Finding Network, and create a larger combined subscriber base. Currently listed on the stock exchange in Australia, Life360 says it has plans for a “potential dual listing in the US” next year.

In a blog post announcing the Tile acquisition, Life360 CEO and co-founder Chris Hulls says, “The combination of Life360 and Tile means safety just got a whole lot simpler for millions of families and individuals around the world. We’ll be bundling Tile devices as part of our Membership plans, and Tile will offer Life360 Membership benefits to its customers. We’ll also start work on integrating our technologies so Tile devices, Jiobit wearables, and Life360 app customers will show up on a unified map – people, pets, and things all in one place.”

So clearly Life360 seriously wants to to up their game in terms of location tracking. And Tile clearly fits into that. But I suspect that Tile users may want to be ready for Life360’s rather craptastic privacy policy. Life360 data harvests and sells your data (including location data). My sense is that this will mean that Tile users will likely defect to other solutions. We’ll have to see how this plays out. In any case, at least Tile has a backer to help it to better complete with Apple’s AirTags.

With the release of Apple AirTag, Tile is under pressure as evidenced by them being vocal about wanting “fair” competition and going to congress to complain about it. That pressure is being driven by the size of their network which is meant to help you to find your stuff when you lose it. It is a drop in the bucket when compared to every Apple device on the planet which totals about a billion devices. Which means that if you want to find your stuff, Tile can’t help you with that. This was reinforced by an experiment that I wrote about yesterday where the Apple AirTag was found within minutes and the Tile was never found. And further reinforced by this video done by Zone Of Tech who conducted a comparison of Apple AirTag, Samsung SmartTag, and Tile. Tile largely came out on the wrong end of that comparison as well. Specifically Tile was only found once in their experiment while the other trackers were found frequently during their experiment. That highlighted that there’s basically three silos when it comes to the tracking device space:

• Tile who clearly doesn’t have a big network of devices to help you to find your stuff.
• Samsung who has a much bigger network made up of Samsung devices.
• Apple who has a huge network made up of Apple devices.

Now Tile did cut a deal with Amazon to try and expand their ability to find stuff, just like they cut a deal with Google for the same reason. But that really isn’t going help them to compete with Apple, or Samsung for that matter. So the question is, how does Tile quickly increase the size of their network so that they can be a player in a market that until very recently they’ve dominated?

My suggestion is this: If I were CJ Prober who is the CEO of Tile, I would sell the company to Google. Then Google should promptly integrate Tile functionality into Android so that it has the same scale in terms of finding things based on the fact that there are maybe a billion or more Android devices out there. That would instantly make Tile a competitor against Apple and Samsung as this functionality is built into Apple’s OSes as well as Samsung devices which instantly makes their respective tracking devices very useful. One other thing that I would note is that Google in this scenario should also keep the Tile iOS app. That way they don’t orphan the Tile users are who are on iOS, and it insulates them from any potential anti-trust issues. That wouldn’t be unusual for Google as they already do something like this with WearOS.

The fact is that there is zero chance that Tile can grow their network on their own to the scale that they need it to get to so that they can go up against Apple and Samsung in some meaningful way. In fact I fully expect that if Tile does nothing, they will lose market share to both Apple and Samsung. And if Tile joins the Find My network that is run by Apple, seeing as they’re presently not part of it, the Tile network will likely shrink anyway. So Tile’s best shot is to sell themselves to Google as quickly as possible. I say quickly because you have to believe that Google is working on a Tile like product to compete with Apple and Samsung. I base that on the fact that it is rumored that Google is looking to put an ultra wide band chip into their next Pixel phone. Samsung and Apple have those chips in their latest phones which helps their trackers to work better. Thus it makes sense that Google must also be working on a tracking product of some sort and buying Tile would save them a whole lot of time and effort. And time is not on Tile’s side because if Google ships that tracking product and that phone, then you might as well stick a fork in Tile because they will be done.

Thus in light of the above, CJ Prober should get on the phone with Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai ASAP and play a game of Let’s Make A Deal. Because quite frankly, it’s Tile’s only chance for survival as I cannot see any other scenario where Tile survives in the long term.