AirTags are great. But they aren’t perfect for every use case. That’s why third party tracking cards that are compatible with the FindMy Network are handy. Specifically the ones that are roughly as thin as a credit card as that broadens the use cases what you can track. There’s two problems with these third party tracking cards though. The first is none of them have UltraWideband support which would allow you to have the ability to precisely track the card like an AirTag. The second is that none of these cards allows you to replace the battery. The ZIKE Smart Tracking Card solves the second of those problems in an interesting way. Let’s have a look at the card:
This side of the card really doesn’t have anything interesting on it, other than the fact that it has a picture that implies that this card can help you find your stuff:
This side of the card has more pictograms that show all the use cases. A lot of them facilitated by the fact that this tracking card has a slot to allow you to have it hang off luggage or any other item. If you look at the top right corner, there’s a button that activates the card, but doesn’t seem to do anything else after that. For what it’s worth, the cards are IPX7 dust and water resistant. Which means that it expands the potential use cases.
The card is thin. ZIKE claims it’s 2mm and if you look at it relative to my PRESTO transit card, it’s slightly thicker than that card which is roughly the thickness of a credit card.
Adding it to your items on the FindMy app is stupid simple:
- Open the Find My app on your iPhone
- Go to Items and click on the plus sign
- Click on Add Other Item
- Press the button that’s located on the top right corner until it makes a sound
- Follow the onscreen prompts and agree to the fact that law enforcement will hunt you down if you use this for illegal purposes.
- Done! Declare victory and have a beer!
Now once you’ve added it you can track it. But only via Bluetooth as it has no UltraWideband support. Which means that you’re going to have to play a sound and play a game of “Marco Polo” until you find it. That brings me to how loud this card is. According to my Apple Watch Ultra, it puts out 76dB. By comparison, the Chipolo CARD Spot was 10dB louder. The sound it high pitched so you should be able to hear it, but it would have been nice if it were a bit louder. The one thing that it does that the CARD Spot does not have is the ability to recharge the built in battery via wireless charging:
If you look carefully at the word “ZIKE” in the top left corner, you will see a red light and a green light. The red light means that it is charging, and the green light means that it is charged. But you may have to fiddle with the placement of the card to get it to charge. Based on my testing with this wireless charger, the charging coils for the card are at the bottom of the card. I was also able to replicate that with a MagSafe Adapter (which it actually sticks to by the way). Larger wireless chargers like this wireless charger had no issue in terms of charging it. Likely because the charging coils are larger making placement less of an issue. In any case, 30 minutes of charge should get you a year of usage. I clearly haven’t had these for a year. But I can say that I charged them in about 30 minutes when I first got them, then a week later I was able to get a full charge into them in a couple of minutes. That suggests to me a year of battery life is plausible.
Now these cards aren’t exactly cheap. MSRP for each one is $66.89 CAD but they are currently going for $47.38 CAD at the moment. And there are discounts if you buy more than one. My thinking is that this price is based on the fact that ZIKE isn’t going to be selling you one of these cards every year when the battery runs out. Thus they have to get their cash up front. Regardless, The ZIKE Smart Tracking Card has earned a place in my Ekster Carbon Fibre Cardholder to make sure that I don’t lose it.