Tile Pro review: The bluetooth tracker that’s built to last

Many people recognize the original Tile Mate as a great Bluetooth tracker because of its ease of control and flexible support. However, the all-plastic design is not suitable for all adventures. This is where the Tile Pro comes in. It is supposed to ring louder and the metal frame should take more blows, but are these claims true? Find out in our Tile Pro review.

Learn more: The best bluetooth trackers

• Tile Pro (1-Pack): $ 34.99 / € 34.99 / £ 29.99
• Tile Pro (2-pack): $ 59.99 / € 59.99 / £ 49.99

The Tile Pro is a bluetooth tracker that you can attach to your most valuable possessions to keep track of things. It’s slightly larger than the original Tile Mate, but has an almost identical design. It keeps the hole mounted in the corner for easy attachment, but swaps the all-plastic construction for a sturdier metal frame. Like the Tile Mate, the Tile Pro received an update in 2020 to keep up with offerings from Apple and Samsung.

As far as these competitors are concerned, the Tile Pro is in a class a bit apart from the AirTag and the Galaxy SmartTag. It’s $ 5 more than either offer, but retains the flexible approach that makes Tile great. You can connect your Tile Pro to either Android or iOS with a simple download of the Tile app.

The Tile Pro is easiest to get in black or white, although you can purchase some special edition samples direct from Tile. These usually change over the course of the year, but right now you can take advantage of options like Paradise, Spaceman, and more.

Of course, if you want to use all of its features, you have to try Tile Premium. The service costs $ 2.99 per month or $ 29.99 for a year. It serves as your entry point for everything from smart alerts to free battery changes, and Tile Premium is a must have if you need location history data. You can always try Tile Premium Protect for even more protection, which adds up to up to $ 1,000 in item refunds for a cool $ 99.99 per year.

The Tile Pro relies on simple controls to help you find lost items. When you ring from your phone, simply pressing the tracker will mute the ringtone. On the other hand, if you double-press your tile to find it, your phone will ring.

Now that you know the basics, let’s see how the Tile Pro performs on a day-to-day basis.

The Tile Pro is slightly larger than the Tile Mate, but still perfectly pocket-friendly. This increase in size allows for a larger speaker, which helps make the Tile Pro the loudest of all trackers I’ve tried so far. Tile did a good job of spreading the larger size outward rather than making the Pro thicker so it still fits comfortably with my other keys.

One of the key changes Tile made to the Pro model is the metal frame. It’s not that the Tile Mate has ever felt thin, but you can feel a bit more confident about pushing the Tile Pro through the wringers. The blackened finish of the Pro also seems to handle scuffs and scratches better than the brilliant white of the original tracker. While it does require a CR2032 battery, it’s as easy as ever to swap from the back.

As with other models, Tile shows its value in flexibility. While Apple and Samsung try to get you involved in their respective ecosystems, the Tile Pro is ready to play along with Android and iOS. Just download the Tile app and you can sign in with the same credentials on any device.

You can’t really navigate the world of tile trackers without the app, but the user interface makes life easy. Adding new trackers is a breeze with the Add Tile button, and you can always jump to the Map tab to see your surroundings. The Tile app is your home base whenever you need to update your settings, change a ringtone, or tap on Tile Premium options like Smart Alerts.

What’s not so good?

Overall, the Tile Pro offers a great experience. It goes into the durability issues of the Tile Mate, although it doesn’t add much water resistance. You still want a lot more than avoiding rain and the occasional splash if you want to keep your Pro for years.

We can expect the fact that the Tile Pro is no more water-resistant than any other tracker, but the reliance on Tile Premium is more worrying. This is already a $ 35 bluetooth tracker, so an additional $ 30 per year can add up quickly, especially if you have a few tiles. This is especially true when you are considering other trackers like the Chipolo One, which offers similar smart alerts right out of the box at no additional cost. Free battery changes are nice, but you won’t need them very often, and there are other affordable ways to get your hands on batteries.

Another unfortunate holdover in the Tile app is that once activated, you cannot remove Tiles. Sure, you can replace it or transfer it to a friend, but the tile will stay active forever. Even if you hide the tile in your account, it is still active in the background.

The Tile Pro also has a remarkable 400 feet of Bluetooth range. If that sounds too good to be true, it is. You need a free, uninterrupted area between your phone and your Tile to be able to get anything near that range. Unless you live in a large area, you are likely only seeing a fraction of that range.

Tile uses all of its trackers to form a network that will constantly ping your device. It works great if you live near other users in a big city, but you don’t know how many users are in your area until you buy a tile and activate it. As you live farther out in the country, the chances of finding more than a handful of other users get smaller and smaller. The AirTag and Galaxy SmartTag have an advantage here as I know there are far more iPhone and Samsung Galaxy users near me than Tile users.

Tile’s attempt to compensate for the smaller user base is taking place, at least in the USA, in the form of an Amazon Sidewalk integration. It brings in Amazon Echo and Ring devices to give you a few more data points for tracking. However, Amazon users can opt out of the sidewalk feature, so your tracking may not be improved.

While Bluetooth tracking is supposed to be a one-way street between you and your tracker, the system isn’t perfect. Tile doesn’t offer any real anti-stalking features, which means that with enough effort, bad apples could try to stalk you. On the plus side, fewer tile users mean would-be stalkers have fewer data points to work with. This is where the Amazon Sidewalk integration works like a double-edged sword, as the additional tracking points mean stalkers have more options to tap into your location.

Tile Pro Review: Should I Buy It?

Despite its problems, the Tile Pro is probably the best bluetooth tracker most people can buy. It’s loud, sturdy, and offers operating system flexibility that Apple and Samsung don’t. The Tile Pro is an excellent alternative to the classic Tile Mate when preparing for an outdoor adventure, even if it comes at a price. It costs $ 10 more than the Mate and $ 5 more than the Apple AirTag ($ 29) or the Galaxy SmartTag ($ 29), but it’s worth the extra.

See also: The best Apple AirTag alternatives

That said, dedicated Apple users may want to stick with the AirTag if they aren’t that concerned about build quality. Although the AirTag sacrifices the practical hole design, it’s hard to beat the massive ecosystem and get accurate tracking.

The biggest question is whether or not you want to sign up for Tile Premium. It adds some key features, but other trackers offer the same options without a $ 29.99 annual fee. Tile’s lack of anti-stalking support also raises some questions.

If you’re wavering back and forth between Android and iOS, you may have to decide between Tile and Chipolo for your next tracker. The Tile Pro is a very loud bang for your buck, and the multipack discounts are hard to beat.