How to Allow People to Return Your Lost Tile Bluetooth Tracker
This story originally appeared on PingTag’s blog.
If you have a Tile Bluetooth tracker on one of your items, have you ever wondered what would happen if you can’t find it, but someone else did and wants to get in touch with you you and return it to you?
Here is how you can allow people to contact you when they find one of your items that has a Tile on it, without having to reveal your contact information to them.
I love my Tile trackers, and I have a couple of them attached to my keys, bag, and dog. I even have one in my car, because I tend to forget where I parked it.
But Tile has some limitations.
It currently has a range of 250–400 feet, so you need to be within that range to find it.
And if you are out of range, you need a community or network of other phones with the Tile app installed and running in the background to help you find your lost item.
But what happens when you are out of range, and there aren’t enough phones with the app running to help you locate your Tile?
It’s very possible that someone has already found your keys, bag or pet, and is trying to contact you.
Tile has recently come up with a solution: a QR code printed on the back of Tile Pro and Tile Slim that anyone who finds your Tile can scan to see your phone number and call you.
But that solution worries me as a Tile owner!
Imagine this scenario: someone finds your keys, scans the QR code on your Tile, gets your phone number, and then with a quick reverse phone lookup, finds your address.
All of a sudden, a stranger who has your keys also knows where you live.
That’s SCARY!
Instead of using Tile’s solution, I put PingTag lost-and-found QR stickers on all my Tiles, because it allows people to contact you when they find one of your lost items, without revealing your identity or your contact information to them.
When someone finds your keys and scans the PingTag sticker on the Tile, it opens a page where that can see any public message you choose to share with them (For instance, a $50 reward for returning your keys)
And there is a button on that page to contact you.
But instead of showing a stranger your phone number, that button opens a private page where someone can chat with you.
On your end, you receive email and text alerts with that message, and you can reply directly via SMS, without sharing your phone number with anyone.
The other person will see your replies on the same page, or they can choose to have PingTag forward your replies anonymously to their phone number.
That way, your identity and contact information remains 100% private, while you can still chat with whoever finds your lost item and agree on where to meet up to get it back.
You can also assign multiple contacts to the same PingTag, and all of them will receive emails and text alerts, and any one of them can reply anonymously from SMS. For instance, if I am traveling, I add my dog sitter’s contact information to the sticker on the Tile attached to his collar, and that way both of us will get the message if he gets lost. I also add my dog’s health and behavior information to his PingTag.
So, if you have a Tile, or are thinking about getting one, I highly recommend getting PingTag stickers to attach to it so that whoever finds your keys, bag or pet can return it to you without revealing your identity or contact information.
You can even put those stickers on other things that you cannot put a Tile on, like your camera, your headphones, your water bottle, and even your passport!
The stickers are made in the U.S.A. from durable vinyl that is waterproof and heat resistant.
And they come in different beautiful colors: red, green, blue, pink, purple, white, and black.
Get PingTag stickers for your Tile at mypingtag.com
Disclaimer: PingTag is not affiliated with Tile or Life360.
