Apple AirTag versus Tile tracker, which is best for finding luggage
The tiny tech gadgets that allow you to track your most loved personal items, that’s right…. Bluetooth trackers. The tech products are one of the most sought-after accessories and one ‘clip on a keyring’ or ‘slip into a pocket’ means you can keep an eye on pretty much anything.
Whether it’s your car keys, handbag, laptop case, or even adding to the collar of your family pet, these penny-sized gadgets have become a staple for many tech shoppers. Including myself, who put two of the biggest brands to the test on a recent trip through airport security on my way to Nice, France.
There’s nothing worse than arriving at your holiday destination, getting through the passport line and to the baggage carousel to realise your bags haven’t made it ‘to the other side’. This is where Bluetooth trackers have really proven to come in handy.
- Buy our recommended Apple AirTag for £35
- Buy two rival Tile Trackers for £37.99
It just takes a quick look on Google to see the hundreds of success stories of frequent flyers who’ve tracked down their lost pieces of luggage. Like who, despite being told her case had been lost on the way to her destination, tracked it with an Apple AirTag to an apartment building complex.
This is where we get onto the two brands I slipped into my luggage just before I headed over to the check-in desk; an Apple AirTag and two Tile trackers. Arguably two well-known brands both offer tracking devices, but which one is best for your next trip to the airport?
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Apple AirTag versus Tile tracker
I put two Tile trackers and an Apple AirTag in difference pieces of our groups luggage just in case we lost our bagsWhilst Apple didn’t come up with the first tracker (they were beaten years before by Tile) it certainly boosted the product onto many phone users' shopping lists, especially the huge chunk of the world that uses an iPhone.
Nonetheless, both brands offer the exact same thing give or take a few design details, which I’ll get into below. Both Apple’s penny-sized AirTag and Tile’s tiny square tracker can locate any gadget thanks to Bluetooth.
The devices let off a personal network which can be found by the user or any other Tile or AirTag user within a close proximity to the tag. If you left your bag in a shop either of the two trackers will ping its location to nearby users and they can then share the location with you.
AirTag and Tile both run on a range of around 10 metres so if you went outside of this range, like me who checked in my bags on the other side of the airport, you’d have to rely on other app users to notify you of the Tile and AirTag pings.
The biggest difference between the two, and likely a huge selling point for many, is compatibility. Tile is miles ahead when it comes to working on a bigger range of smartphones, including Android, whilst Apple is not surprisingly restricted to its own iPhone.
When choosing a brand to go for this does put Android users with less of a choice and iPhone users would have to decide if they wanted to forgo Apple’s branding and the ease of having all details and locations synced to iCloud.
AirTag versus Tile: Which one made it easier to find my bag?
One brand clearly stood out to me once I checked for my bags when we had landed in Nice, and it was all down to the location precision on both brands’ built-in apps.
Apple users may already be well aware of the ‘Find My’ app and the AirTag is tracked here very similarly if you were to look for a lost phone on the ‘Find My iPhone’ days. Tile also has an app but instead of opening it up and seeing the location of the tracker straight away (like with the AirTag) you have to click ‘location history’.
This isn’t a huge problem but it does feel like more effort compared to Apple’s seamless system. Now onto finding the devices.
The Apple 'Find My' app on the left versus the Tile App on the right as I looked for my bags in NiceOnce I had checked the luggage in at Liverpool John Lennon Airport I only checked the tags once, just on the plane to see if our suitcases had boarded with us. Indeed they had, and I could see they were just behind us (and the bag with the Tile was potentially making a loud ringing sound for the baggage handlers to hear).
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A few hours later we had landed in Nice and it was time to wait for our bags at the luggage carousel. I knew all three of our bags had boarded the plane with us but the trackers gave an accurate idea of how long they’d take to get off the plane.
On both the Tile app and Find My app I could see straight away where our bags were and how long ago they were in that location. Although one brand came out on top with its location map… the AirTag.
It’s a small detail but when looking for an item in what I can imagine a frantic situation (if you’ve lost something) you’d ideally want a tracker that shows its location on an ‘easy-to-use’ map, something Tile is slightly behind on.
Apple’s Find My app gives off a much more generalised area than Tile, you can see nearby restaurants, shops and services as well as a small blue dot for where you are on the map in relation to the tracker. As well as an arrow pointing in the direction, all thanks to its ultrawideband tracking.
AirTag versus Tile: The best to buy
Apple's tracking and finding the location in the 'Find My' app outweighed the glitchy Tile softwareOf course, the decision is a lot easier if you’ve got an Android phone, as an Apple AirTag would be out the window. Those with an iPhone may have a trickier decision to make as Tile works with Apple products, even if it’s a slightly clunkier app.
This is where the Apple AirTag comes out on top as the best tracker to buy if you can’t decide between that and Tile. Here at Mirror Choice, we’ve backed it thanks to its sleek in-app experiences, precise notifications and the ability to find it on another Apple device (if you share the same Apple ID that is).
Another huge factor is price. Once you’ve paid for a pack or individual AirTag you won’t face any other costs; free app and no cost to look at the history.
Tile however, charge an extra £2.99 a month or £29.99 a year for features which can be done for free on the AirTag. Looking at a 30-day history location, and getting a notification to your phone each time you leave without your Tile tracker - something Apple without asking an extra penny for each time I left the villa in France, got in the transfer and checked by bag in at security.
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