Review on Tile Gen Anything Discontinued Manufacturer by Born Waheed

A Little Background: Me the kind of person who would lose their head if it weren't attached to their shoulders. Okay not too bad but my mind can store a million and one random academic fact but not the current location of my keys or glasses. So I was so grateful to have the opportunity to view multiple trackers in exchange for discounts. (I've been able to snag these deals at Trackr, Mynt & Nut but not Tile - I bought a lightly used one off eBay to add to the comparison as my review would be incomplete without this brand which is currently the industry leader) . I'll be posting pictures together below so you can see a comparison of the size and thickness of each (note that Mynt - the black oval - is taped to my keychain). From end to end you will see: Tile, Nut, Trackr Bravo, Mynt, Quarter for size comparison (sorry for the upside down photos). My screenshot from the application of this particular brand will also be posted. Below are my reviews of the different qualities and my thoughts on brand comparisons. At the end of this review you will find all the specific stories about each brand that I am reviewing here. All 4 allow both the phone to find the device and the device to find the phone, but they work to varying degrees, which I'll discuss separately. SIZE: In terms of surface area, the Trackr Bravo was the smallest, although the Mynt is narrow and long (oval); They are followed by walnut and tile, the largest. In terms of thickness, the Mynt wins (it's actually about 2-quarters thick), while the Trackr Bravo comes in second. Again, Tile is the thickest, although its size isn't at all noticeable on a keychain (although you might not want to carry it in your wallet). All 4 devices can either be attached to a keychain or attached to anything using the included adhesive tabs (Mynt is shown here on my keychain). RELIABILITY - PHONE LOCATOR. Haven't tested it at different distances yet (will update when I do). I tested this by asking my mom to hide devices under clothing and such, and I was in another room with a phone. I didn't find a big difference in this function. I will say that the GPS locator for Tile & Mynt was accurate. The GPS trackr sometimes indicated my device was about 2 miles down the road at Walmart, sometimes in the right place at home. GPS Nut only uses the object's last known location, so even after I lost it in upstate New York, it still indicated that the object was in New Jersey, where it obviously wasn't. RELIABILITY - PHONE DEVICE SEARCH: This is where the real differences come in. All 4 devices (including Tile 2.0 but not 1.0) can use the device to find your phone when clicked - or theoretically should. The tile was the only one that did this 100% of the time I tried within 100 feet. Mynt didn't do it all the time until I reset it - it was almost 100% of the time now, although I'll update if I use it more often. Nut and Trackr were EXTREMELY spotty/fuzzy, especially through walls. Some days the device could be next to the phone and I couldn't get the phone to ring. In particular, the Trackr was tuned to music, and you could tell the music came and went for a split second, like you had a distant radio station with almost no reception. One thing to note here is that some of them MUST have your sound turned on (but not Tile, which can ring even in silent mode), and all 4 MUST ALWAYS have BLUETOOTH ON. They use Bluetooth Low Energy technology to connect. So if, like me, you occasionally turn off Bluetooth to save power, forget it if you ever want to find your phone that way. Finally, remember to keep apps running in the background to get them working - well, everything except MYNT I think (they don't mention it, and I've tried with closed apps; Mynt was the only one that connected to the phone could produce). . DEVICE SOUND: Out of the 4, Tile 2.0 has the loudest sound on the device (the internal speaker has been upgraded after 1.0, hence the new 3 have small holes on the back). Second in my ear was Mint, followed by Nut. The tracker was the hardest to hear, especially when your item was buried under a pile of clothes, in a purse, or whatever. The small alarm clock is also high, with such a frequency, it would be very difficult for the elderly to detect. BATTERY LIFE: The tile lost a lot of points in this category because it was otherwise near perfect (except for the size, but it was still small). . It's the only one that doesn't have a battery swap option; Basically, it's a one-time thing. For $25 (probably in a year) may not be for everyone. Others have coin-operated batteries that you can replace fairly easily, so we're only talking about a dollar or two (a big difference from $25). So far the Trackr seems to be draining the batteries quickly (some say they need to be replaced every 3 months? Not that close to the manufacturer's estimate of a year). Mynt and Trackr have battery monitors that show how much charge is left, but only Mynt has an accurate percentage reading, and the reading seems more accurate than the Trackr. have the largest number of people using crowdsourcing to locate devices when they are reported lost. Tiles are very popular and I'm sure they're branded too. I get the impression that Nut doesn't have many fans in the US, although I lack data on it (I'll say the ones I declared lost at Cornell, 0 people tried to track them down). Mint, I'm not sure. There is no information about crowdfunding in the app itself, but their website mentions this option for lost units. SPLIT/ANTI-LOSS WARNINGS: I noticed that Nut, Trackr and Mynt have these options; haven't found it in tile yet (anyone please let me know if they have that option, I don't see it in the app). These 3 send an alert when an object separates from your phone some distance away or goes out of range of your home WiFi. The nut also has a silent period in addition to the silent region (which the other two have); that means: no disconnection warnings in the period you specified. Good to have because Nut & Trackr kept giving me false positives if I didn't even move the objects they were attached to; and both sat by the phone and didn't move (which struck me as even more unreliable). IN-APP EASE OF USE: I would say that all the apps were quite user-friendly. They all have different menus that you need to get used to. All 4 use the GPS tracking devices in your smartphone to display maps (although, as said, location accuracy varies). Initially, all 4 were easy to bind to my device. Trackr is the only one integrated with Nest. It also has software that tracks how many times you call your device from your phone and vice versa, how many disconnect alerts you've had, etc. It also has a little range finder that tells you if you're getting closer or farther away from an object (I call this the "Marco Polo" function), but in practice I can't get it to work very well until you're practically over the object. Mynt has a TON of customizable options for alarm sounds, volume, and what you use it for etc. I'll cover this in more detail in my Nut review, but I really hate it when you declare a device lost you're forced to track it from your own phone off to disable - it makes no sense. OTHER FEATURES: As far as I can tell, Mynt is the only one that has other uses, including as a remote shutter release for your phone's camera, slideshow remote, music playback, etc. All 4 claim they can also be used to find one car, a pet or a child. I believe they all claim to be waterproof despite not being submersible. Tile used to be fully waterproof (as it's the only one without a battery compartment), but now the price for the small speaker holes may be that it's a little less waterproof (although I suspect it could handle some downpours; the pinholes are really tiny) . Sorry for that long general comparison, but here's my specific review of Tile: I really love this device and find it one of the most reliable for finding my phone every time. Then why did I deduct a star? One and only one reason - the inability to replace the battery. To me, that's huge -- and basically makes it a one-time item that I have to pay $25 to replace at least once a year (as opposed to pennies for a battery like some others). The large size didn't bother me because I still think it's an understated thing; Modern looking and simple, easy to use, has excellent GPS capabilities for the crowd, very accurate location mapping etc compared to others. Is there room for improvement beyond my complaint? Of course, Tile (with its history as a crowdfunding startup) is known for its response to user complaints, and Tile 2.0 proves it. So I have high hopes that in the future they will release a removable battery version that returns the last star. But in its current form the Mynt edged out the Tile by a hair's breadth as both were very reliable, but the Mynt has a battery swap, is smaller and has other alternative features (and costs a little less per unit). To be honest I've enjoyed using both, I just wish Tile would work on the battery issue.