Tile Is Including a Literal SOS Button on Its Trackers

Tile trackers have an odd fame. For one, they’ve lengthy been Apple’s foremost competitor for its AirTag Bluetooth trackers. On the similar time, these tags have run up in opposition to accusations they facilitate stalking, much more than Apple’s ultra-popular tracker. System maker Life360’s latest Tile trackers now have a button to alert your mates if “one thing is unsuitable.”

The brand new trackers have a multi-function button that may alert the customers’ associates and the SOS perform within the Tile app if “one thing is unsuitable.” Press the button 3 times, and it’ll ship a notification describing your emergency to contacts designated within the Life360 app. If you need your tracker to contact emergency providers for you while not having to dial 911, you’ll must pay for a Gold or Platinum Life360 app subscription for $15 or $25 a month. These subscriptions additionally web you a free tracker and different advantages like crash detection.

The corporate unveiled its first new trackers since Life360 first bought up the brand in 2021. They embrace a $25 Tile Mate and a $35 Tile Professional with a louder ring and a 500-foot vary in comparison with the earlier Professional’s 400-foot vary. There’s an extra wallet-sized Tile Slim and a $25 Tile Sticker. Because the title suggests, the sticker can purportedly connect to something and permit for Bluetooth monitoring on virtually something. 

Ever wished to trace the place you place your portable power bank? The sticker may be possibility. All of them can be found beginning Monday. The SOS options appear fascinating, however regardless of the brand new built-in panic, it received’t do a lot to cease the accusations that Tile has been fairly lax with its anti-tracking efforts.

Tile has been on-again and off-again in its efforts to discourage stalking with its trackers. The corporate rolled out anti-tracking software again in 2022. Like Apple’s AirTag scanning, the “Scan and Safe” function lets Life360 customers seek for undesirable tags on their particular person, although it is advisable to undergo the app. The corporate then carried out one other function that allowed customers to make their tags invisible, hiding the trackers from its personal scans. To allow the invisible trackers, customers wanted to supply up biometric knowledge and consent to a possible $1 million lawsuit in the event that they had been convicted of stalking. On the time, Life360 claimed the loophole in its anti-stalking initiative was to assist customers get well stolen objects.

“Not like rivals like Airtags and upcoming merchandise appropriate with the Google Discover My System Community, Tile doesn’t alert thieves in the event that they steal an merchandise with one in all our trackers,” Tile claims in its press launch about its Anti-Theft mode.

Final yr, two girls in Texas who say they had been stalked with the assistance of a Tile tracker helped file a class action lawsuit in opposition to the corporate. The pair of alleged stalking victims claimed the tracker maker “marketed its product each explicitly and implicitly for the aim of monitoring folks—notably girls.” In response, Tile says it doesn’t condone stalking with its trackers and works with legislation enforcement when these circumstances crop up. The corporate additionally claimed on the time it had acquired no studies of misuse of its anti-theft mode. That case is ongoing, and Tile’s attorneys has argued that the case ought to be moved into arbitration.

So the brand new tags nonetheless don’t assist anyone involved they’re being hounded with the assistance of a Tile tracker. Nonetheless, for many individuals—particularly girls—who dread electronically-enabled stalking, then it may show a considerable, although extremely ironic, peace of thoughts.