Verdict
A small and unobtrusive Bluetooth tracker with a sticky back and enough range to be useful, the Tile Sticker is a great way to make your valuables less easy to lose. It comes at a reasonable price, but the battery isn’t replaceable and its tiny size can make it awkward to use.
Pros
- Small
- Sticky
- Effective for tracking smaller items
Cons
- Battery not replaceable
- Three-year life
- Short range in practice
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Compact dimensionsThe Tile Sticker is one of the more compact Bluetooth trackers on the market, making it ideal for tracking smaller items – especially with its sticky surface. -
Works with Life360As well as tracking the Sticker via the Tile app, you can set up and use the tracker via the popular Life360 app. -
Built-in SOS functionalityTriple-press the button to send an SOS alert with your location to predetermined contacts via the Life360 app.
Introduction
If you’re the sort of person who loses things, then firstly congratulations on finding the device you’re reading this review on. And secondly, maybe look into getting some locators. That’s probably why you’re here.
Tile’s Sticker is one such device, small and, as you might expect, sticky so that it can be placed unobtrusively onto things like phones, cars, luggage and anything you can get it to stay put on. You can then use the Tile app to find out where it is and, hopefully, retrieve it.
It’s Tile’s smallest tracker, though the Tile Slim may surpass it when it comes to squeezing into tight spaces, and new for 2024 is the ability to send a discreet SOS alert with a triple-button-press as long as you’ve configured it in the app first.
It also claims water resistance, an improved Bluetooth detection range over earlier versions, as well as three years of life from its non-replaceable battery. Could this be the best Bluetooth tracker of its kind? Let’s dive in.
Design
- Very discreet
- Easy to attach
- Perhaps too small
The Tile Sticker is a very neat piece of design. Inside a casing just a few millimetres thick is the (non-replaceable) battery, antenna, circuitry, speaker and microswitch that makes it work. It has an adhesive back that clamps it firmly to objects, and the casing itself is water-resistant down to 1.5m with an IP68 rating.
It is certainly a discreet little thing, capable of being secreted in a pocket or an unregarded nook where it can sit quietly, doing its job. It’s slightly less circular than the previous iteration, taking on more of a rounded rectangle shape while still avoiding having actual corners.
The Sticker is matt black, surprisingly light, and doesn’t draw attention to itself, the only things breaking its smooth casing are the three holes over the built-in speaker and a single button. Ironically, it’s the sort of thing that would be very easy to lose.
Luckily, the back of the Sticker is covered in glue. It’s meant to last three years, which is the same as the quoted battery life, so you’ll stand a chance of removing it from whatever you’ve stuck it to once it stops working. It’s worth noting that the back of the Sticker is completely flat, so you may need to rethink, or get creative, if you intend to stick it to anything curved.
The button is used for a few different functions. It’s one press to begin the pairing process with the Tile phone app, something you’ll need to do to begin using the tracker. It plays a jolly tune during this process, and you’ll be asked to assign the Sticker to a position, such as on your dog or in your briefcase, which is useful if you have several. Keeping track of your trackers can be tricky as they all look the same.
Two presses sends a signal the other way, and allows you to find your phone if you’ve lost it, and it will even make a sound if you’ve got it on silent mode. Three presses sends an SOS signal from the Sticker, but you’ll need to be using the Life360 phone app for this instead of the basic Tile app.
The button itself is easy enough to press when holding the Sticker in your hand, as you pair it with your phone app, but when it’s stuck to something there are two small issues.
One is that the Sticker is symmetrical, so you never quite know which side the button is going to be on, and it’s very flush with the casing so can’t reliably be felt for. The other is that the Sticker itself isn’t very high, so it can be difficult to get your finger on the button well enough to press it.
Performance
- 75-metre+ claimed range
- Good adhesion
- Loud enough to be noticed
Tile recommends sticking the Sticker to a dry flat surface, and warns that it may take up to 24 hours for the adhesive to fully bond. If you’re determined it should never fall off, you can of course help it out with a splodge of glue, but then you have to think about removing it after the battery runs out.
Repositioning of the sticker is facilitated by the presence of a single replacement adhesive pad in the box, alongside a folded paper leaflet, a warranty and regulatory information in several languages.
There’s also a question about the range. In the online FAQ, a figure of 75m/250ft is stated. In the email that arrives after you’ve paired the Sticker with your phone, the range has increased to 106m/350ft.
In practice, I found the signal petered out once I was standing around 30m away, even with a direct line of sight to its resting place. The chirpy tune played from the tiny speaker could still be heard at this distance, however,so if you can trigger it you stand a good chance of being reunited with your lost object.
Step out of Bluetooth range, and the Tile app displays the last known position on a map, allowing you to retrace your steps and perhaps discover where it is. Walls further attenuate the signal, so you may need to be quite close to the Sticker to detect it.
Tile locators are Bluetooth devices, so have no GPS or Ultra Wideband capability. They’re reliant on nearby devices with the Tile app installed, their Bluetooth switched on and location permissions set correctly, to be found and to obtain location information.
This means that if you lose a Sticker-attached TV remote in your house you stand a pretty good chance of finding it, as the sound emitted by the speaker is loud enough to be heard while it’s quiet enough (though something like sofa cushions or a heavy sleeping dog may muffle it somewhat).
However, if you drop it on a wild hillside path you’ll have to wait until someone else with the correct combination of phone and app comes past to get a fix. And then question why you were carrying the TV remote on a hike anyway.
Software
- Two apps
- Subscription not mandatory
- Free trial
Tile’s app offering has become slightly confusing, as the trackers will work with two apps. The Tile app itself – which now calls itself Tile by Life360 in the Google Play Store description, as Life360 is Tile’s parent company – allows you to do more or less everything you’d want to with the Sticker, but you’ll need the Life360 location-tracking app if you want to use the SOS message feature.
It’s odd that Tile hasn’t been moved over completely to its parent’s app, and it’s quite possible that this will happen in the future.
For now, both apps are available on Android and iOS, making them ideal for mixed-device households as AirTags still only work with iOS devices – but though Tile tracks its locators, allowing you to find whatever you’ve stuck them to (which may include your pets and children), Life360 is explicitly for tracking people through locators and devices, and may leave potential users feeling uneasy as a result.
The two apps have suffered data breaches in 2024, including an extortion attempt against the company.
Both apps require accounts, and are straightforward to use, taking you through setup and explaining their respective features. During the setup process you’ll be prompted to take out a Tile Premium subscription that can cost as much as £99.99 a year. There’s a free trial if you want to give it a go before making a commitment.
You can use the Sticker perfectly well without it, but some of the location sharing and location history features, as well as the offer to reimburse you for a lost item if Tile can’t find it (within financial limits), may be useful.
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Should you buy it?
You need a compact tracker to stick out of sight
The small dimensions and sticky surface of the Tile Sticker make it particularly easy to attach to something and forget about.
You want a tracker you don’t have to throw away
Unlike the Tile Pro, the Tile Sticker’s battery isn’t replaceable, and there’s no way to recharge it, so you’ll have to dispose of it once it’s out of charge.
Final Thoughts
The Sticker is an interesting device simply because it’s so small. Easily tucked away in a niche and not so big that it’s ever going to get in the way (though you’ll still struggle to find an unobtrusive place to stick it on a laptop), the Tile Sticker is going to find itself used in a thousand different places.
It’s a shame one of its features requires using a particular app, and that its size – arguably the main reason for buying it – can make that feature harder to use, but as a basic Bluetooth tracker you can stick anywhere for £25/$25 it’s an excellent choice.
How we test
We make sure to spend at least a week with each tracker, testing all of the advertised features. We’ll also test the range of the product, and how easy it is to set up.
We spend at least a week testing each tracker
We test the maximum range of each tracker
Extensively test the companion app
FAQs
No, the battery isn’t replaceable, so you’ll have to recycle it once it runs out of charge.
Yes, it’s both water- and dust-resistant with an IP68 rating.
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