I Heart my Tile

As a chronic loser of all. the. things. I was intrigued when I first read about the Tile. This was years ago, and I was immediately curious, but I never got one because… well I’m not sure why.

Then I noticed that a friend at work had one on her lanyard because she was always losing her school keys. I keep my school keys around my neck and rarely misplace them, but was intrigued with the possibility of having one on my regular keys. I keep my keys and my wallet together with a carabiner so that I’ll never forget either one somewhere, but that doesn’t stop me from misplacing both of them around my house, like every day.

So when my mom asked for suggestions for my dad this past Christmas, I sent her a link to the Tile four pack with the note, “Two for him and two for me. Yay stocking stuffers!” You see, I inherited my propensity for losing things from my father.

My mom got the four pack and gave two to me. I put one on my keys and left the other in my nightstand drawer so I could use it to find my phone, which I spend more time looking for than my keys. And while yes, I can call my phone, the ringer is almost always off, and a lot of the time I have it on “do not disturb” so being able to call it (if I’m lucky enough that my husband is home with his phone–we don’t have a land line)  isn’t all that helpful.

And this is why I love my Tile. One of its coolest features is that if you ring your phone from your Tile it will play the song even if the ringer is off or it’s set to “do not disturb.” The app overrides both those features. So now I can always find my phone in my house, no matter what; all I have to do is double-click the circle on my Tile.

Once I have my phone, I can also find my keys. Inside the app I can ring the Tile on my keys and it will play a song too. Then I can follow the music to my wallet!

I really can’t tell you how much time I’ve saved with this simple little device. I used to spend what felt like hours scouring the house for my phone or my wallet. Now I immediately go to my nightstand, or pick up my phone, and listen for the song.

It has also helped me in my classroom, and even in my car. Sometimes I’m not sure if I threw my phone in with all the shit on my front seat. I used to have to pull over and rummage around for it, looking between the seats and even on the floor (yes, my life is a mess). Now I can press the Tile on my keys and if I hear the song, I can start driving without even finding my phone. This has prevented me from being late on quite a few mornings.

There is even GPS tracking on the Tiles, so if I really lose my keys, the app can tell me where they were last located.

The only negative to the whole set up is I need to keep bluetooth enabled on my phone all the time, otherwise my Tile can’t find it. I think this may affect battery life, but since I charge my phone in my car on the way home from work, it hasn’t been an issue. I honestly don’t know if it makes a noticeable difference on how long my phone holds a charge-I’ve never had an issue with running out of power on my phone because I can’t use it much at school while I’m teaching.

Please know that I have not been contacted by Tile in any way to write this post. I did not receive my Tiles free in exchanged for a review and the link above is not affiliated. I just really love this little item and I do believe it has improved my quality of life. I’m sure most people don’t misplace things as much as I do, but if you spend a good chunk of time looking for the same item over and over, you might want to think about getting a Tile. It really is pretty amazing.