We are Android phone people but we also both use iPads.
About to fly in a few months for the first time in at least 4 years. Trying to minimize stress and complications.
If you have used either or both Tile and Air Tags, please chime in here with tips/ traps that may guide my purchase choice? I have a vague idea of how they work but know nothing of details of deployment, registering, tracking, etc etc.
Thanks !!! 
Cartooniverse, who still remembers the AOL Boards.
Lotta recent discussion on AirTags here:
The Android Tile is not exactly the same gizmo, but has substantially the same function.
My question to you would be “What do you think these devices will do for you while traveling?” Said another way, “What problem(s) are you trying to solve?”
I am currently using a number of Tiles to keep track of various items for work. They seem to work surprisingly well, even being locatable and trackable when hundreds of miles away from my phone (via other phones running the Tile app or their ‘network extenders’). The premium service also has a way to set up warnings when they are separated, to prevent you leaving home with your keys but not your wallet, that sort of thing. You can now buy Tiles whose batteries can be replaced, unlike the earlier models which had to be replaced at that point. They are not particularly cheap, but do meet our needs anyway.
As an iPhone user, I gather AirTags work when they are in the presence of an iPhone with “Find My” app running. Obviously, people would want this for their own phone and associated devices, including the many (vast majority?) who do not own Airtags. Is this the same with Android? Or is there a specific app that is Tiles-only? And what are the odds that many users have Tiles app running, unless it’s a default. OTOH, in places like airports people are more likely to be running the app since they too are likely luggage-tracking travellers.
AirTags are awesome as a key chain:
You can see their last know location and make them make a noise if they’re under the bed.
As a luggage tracker they’re of limited use, your luggage probably isn’t under your bed or in some other place where you can do something about it.
What are you going to do with the knowledge that your suitcase is in LA when you just landed in Denver?
Your luggage is brought successfully to your destination or not, it won’t help if you call the flight attendant just before takeoff if your luggage isn’t in the plane.
Airlines compensate you if your luggage is later or lost. Don’t put stuff in your luggage you really care about.
Tiles also work with Apple devices. That said:
I switched most of my Tiles to AirTags because the Tiles just didn’t work as well. Like, “my keys are right over there and Tile can’t find them” bad. The only Tile I kept was the one in my wallet as there is no card-shaped Airtag yet.
Sure there is; at least there certainly is if you buy a non-Apple tag:
There are stories, some in the other thread, where knowledge of the current location of the luggage has prompted airline folks to, I dunno, actually do something instead of the nothing that was seemingly going to happen.
Just saying, in most “normal” scenarios the airtags do nothing except add things to be anxious about.
(airtags are still great to help find your keys)
Just take out travel insurance (good idea anyway) and make sure you have enough spending room to replace your luggage. If you arrive together with your luggage: great. If not: also great, the airline and the insurance are buying you new stuff.
Why bother giving some clerk at the airport a hard time? Putting an airtag in your suitcase is planning to be Karen.
I sort of agree with you here, and do not have AirTags in my suitcase. But I think if a customer calls with the right attitude, I think the data provided can be useful. The story that I’m remembering is that the airline lost a particular suitcase and the owner was able to tell them it was at some unexpected other airport. From that, the airline crew was able to find it and forward it along. Who knows how long it would have sat otherwise.
One question is - do Tiles work with “Find My…” on Apple devices, or do they require a Tiles app running?
The whole point of AirTags is that the greater majority of Apple users have the FindMy app running on their phones. Hence, if anyone - baggage handler, random person, thief - walks by the area, that location is now noted in the Apple Server.
The other question was how ubquitous the app necessary for Tiles was on even Android phones?
There was the news item in Canada where someone located their missing luggage from the travel fiasco last year where luggage piled up and never got delivered all over North America. They tracked their luggage a few months later to a warehouse outside Toronto. It took some doing to have the place searched, but they found their luggage. The place was piled high with luggage deemed unclaimed and unable to trace owner. Howerver, the external tags had been torn off, suggesting someone found it easier to pretend luggage was untraceable than to actually resolve the luggage problem and deliver every piece. Unclaimed luggage had been sold to a charity for disposal.
Presumably one of the workers handling the luggage in the warehouse (or walking through) had an iPhone.
Real-life experience of this in my family this week. A trip from Sydney to London was NOT accompanied by the bag. While there was frustration it did allow my family member to establish that it was still on another continent and not just slow out of the chute, so she did not waste another two hours loitering near the baggage return, ‘just in case’, as I have done and then missed the last train.
After reporting it lost she could spot it when it reached any airport hub for transfer, but checking the airline’s own lost luggage tracker it showed as still missing. She was able to make decisions about whether to wait for it to reappear or to buy complete new sets of underwear and other items. And then which days to plan to work from home when it was due to be delivered.
It did not solve problems or change anything. What it did do was give her much better information so she could make more informed decisions at the time. I think she feels it was worth it.
Excellent point. You may not be able to intervene in real time, but that doesn’t eliminate all the value.
Since this is looking for tips, and personal experiences, let’s move this to IMHO (from FQ).
They do not work with “Find My.” From my recent experience, they barely work with the Tile app.
If you go with Airtags, spend a few extra dollars and get secure holders if you’re going to be attaching them to luggage so anyone can’t just unclip them and walk off with them.
https://www.amazon.com/Compatible-Keychain-Luggage-Keyrings-Keychains/dp/B0C653LFDR
All of my luggage has zippers on the inside liner to access the handle mechanism and stuff. I unzipped that, and used double sided tape to attach an AirTag to a bit of hard plastic in there. That seemed to work fine, particularly when the bag is full, so the AirTag is also being held in place by clothes pushing on it.
I don’t think of it as an anti-theft device, just simply a location tracker. They don’t prevent crime, there is a good chance they won’t even allow for recovery of the lost item, they just tell you where it is, and that can be very useful.
I use an Android phone and an IPad, so had to decide between getting AirTags and a few competitors that work on Android. I went with the AirTags because of how common iPhones are, and they will all (almost all?) let the AirTag ping home. Other tags have a much smaller network of reporters.
A couple things, as I learned in that other thread, iPads can not do accurate location finding of the AirTag. With a compatible iPhone you can get an arrow that points you to exactly where it is and a distance accurate to a foot or less. The ipad will just give you a rough GPS estimate.
One new feature that is only available in the most recent version of iOS/iPadOS is you can share AirTags between iCloud accounts. So I can see my wife’s AirTags, and she can see mine. Prior to that I’d have to bug her to find out if the kid’s clarinet was left at school or hiding someplace in our house.
You don’t need to actually have the Find My app open, it’s a process that works in the background and is on (I’m pretty sure) by default. You can disable that process, but then you lose the ability to find your own devices, so I’m assuming most people don’t turn it off.
As mentioned, Tile doesn’t work with the Find My network, but Apple has opened the network up to third parties. As an example, the Chipolo ONE Spot and Chipolo CARD Spot do take advantage of the Find My network.
I am willing to trust the airline to eventually deliver my bag to me…
But i often misplace my Kindle, and wish i could make it ring. I’ve wondered if i could affix a “tile” to it and solve that problem.