Life360 and the new Tile lineup deliver as promised. Should you use them?

Life360 has updated its line of popular Bluetooth trackers and for 2024 we're seeing a new Tile Mate, a Tile Pro, Tile Slim, and a Tile Sticker all with better range and enhanced features compared to previous models.

I use Tile products so I was eager to see what the company had to offer for its new lineup, as well as see how the new integration with the Life360 app works. 

Life360 provided me with a complimentary Platinum Membership to their app to test out what's new. This normally costs $24.99 each month. There is a free membership tier and a Gold level tier at $14.99 monthly. You can read a comparison of each membership option here.

I'm not normally a Life360 member, but I have used my Tile trackers through the Tile app for years. I'll talk about both the Life360 app and the new Tile hardware and share my impressions.

The Life360 app works exactly as advertised

If you're not familiar with it, Life360 is a service that tracks people's movements and the devices you've placed in a group. Each member of the group needs to install the app and sign up for the service, so there's no tracking people without it being obvious.

The app has plenty of features, especially on the Platinum Membership tier. You're alerted where each person is through their devices — either a phone with the app or a Tile device — as well as their movements to and from. You can get configurable alerts when someone has left a destination when they've arrived, how long it took, and as they're moving along the way. In addition, you can see when someone's battery is dangerously low or the last place they were if connectivity is lost and even a notification when a flight has landed.

In my testing, I found everything to work exactly as advertised. If my wife left home to go to the grocery store, I was able to track her progress as well as when she left or if she had to stop for gas. If you take the time to enter friendly names for the locations you frequent, they're used in the notification so you'll see a message like "Terry is at Exxon" instead of knowing someone drove for 11 minutes and is at a spot on a map that might not mean much to you.

With the 2024 Tile lineup, there's a new SOS feature through the Life360 app. You can tap the button on a Tile three times and trigger an alert to everyone in your circle or call designated emergency numbers. This too works as advertised, though I did not connect any emergency phone numbers or services. This works in tandem with a crash detection feature to offer peace of mind for a lot of people. This SOS feature is free for all membership tiers.

Additionally, the new Tile trackers are integrated fully into the Life360 app and it can be used to locate and ring connected devices the same way the standalone Tile app can.

For reference, I'm using Life360 with location permissions allowed on a Google Pixel 8a, and my wife is using it the same way on a Pixel 7a. Both of us notice a minimal effect on battery life but no real impact on performance, though there are a lot of notifications if you keep everything enabled.

My takeaway is that the app works well with the new Tile devices and does everything it's supposed to do. The permissions it requests make sense, though it does share some personal data with third parties. You're able to request deletion of all of your data should you wish to do so. These data safety practices will vary based on where you live but this is how it works in the United States.

The new Tiles

I was looking forward to a Tile refresh. I still use Tile trackers because they make the most sense for me. I live in Appalachia. It's peaceful and beautiful here, but you won't see very many iPhones or new Android phones with UWB. Google and Apple's device tracking solutions may be better than Tile's in some places, but not here. I have been able to locate a lost wallet because of Tile's Bluetooth network, so I'll stick with what works. 

At my house, we use Tile on our keys and wallets and keep one in the car. My wife also has a Tile attached to the strap of her purse, and I have one in the pocket of my laptop bag. We are Tile customers and have been for a while.

As mentioned, I use Tile through the standalone Tile app, not Life360. The new Tile hardware should work well for me, too.

The Tile Mate, Tile Slim, and Tile Pro have increased their effective range up to 500 feet from a connected phone. That's half a football field and if you are in an area with plenty of traffic chances are someone using either the Tile app or the Life360 app will come into range on occasion. A larger range means a better chance to find your lost stuff and that's why you want a device like a Tile.

The Tile Mate, the Tile Pro, and the Tile Sticker have also had their speakers buffed to be louder than previous models—a lot louder, in my experience. This makes things easier to find, whether they are stuck on the couch or dropped in the bushes.

Finally, something my wife has been hoping for: the Tile Mate and Tile Slim come in different colors. You can choose from black, blue, green, orange, pink, white, or yellow as well as different combinations of each. For an accessory you will have on your keys or a bag, it makes sense. People will buy a Tile simply because they are colorful.

I like what I see from the new Tile devices. I'm testing a Tile Mate, a Tile Slim, and a Tile Sticker, and again, they do exactly what was expected. I'll buy a second Tile Mate and a Tile Pro to replace the ones I currently have, and once the battery dies on my Tile Slim, I'll purchase a new one to replace it.

One last thing—Tile Stickers work best when stuck to a piece of Velcro so they can be moved to a different device whenever you need to move one. Other wise they are pretty well stuck in place.

The big question: Should you use this?

This is the stickler. Many people would consider Life360 to be invasive. Some consider it an aid in human trafficking or for secret surveillance and predatory.

Having used the service, I can certainly see how it could be used that way. It's fairly trivial to secretly install it on someone's phone, and hiding app icons isn't difficult. I could install Life360 on someone else's phone and probably get away with using it while they didn't know if I had access to their phone for just a few minutes.

Slightly more concerning, but in the same vein, both Apple and Google's apps to find unknown trackers do not detect a Tile device in your vicinity. Granted, the devices do nothing if not connected to the Tile network through a proper companion app, but I know from experience that plenty of people are part of the Tile network. I could put a Tile Sticker on your car without you knowing it and have a good chance of keeping tabs on your movements with incredible detail.

Here's the thing: the Life360 app and devices to help you track items and people are useful to a lot of people. Life360 says one of every nine U.S. families uses their service and needs this sort of software. It works well and has minimal effect on your battery which is exactly what a service like this should do.

These folks aren't part of a human trafficking network or stalking an ex-girlfriend. When people do these things, it's not Life360's fault, and there are plenty of other services out there that will do the same thing even if Life360 goes away.

I can't blame a company for the horrible things people do, even if a product it offers makes those horrible things easier. Life360 is not marketing itself as a way to secretly track someone; it bills itself as a way for families to keep tabs on their kids or elderly seniors. It would be really good at it if that sounds like something you need. 

I have issues with sharing personal data, and my family is small; no teenagers are driving my car to keep track of, and my mom has a sound mind. Life360 isn't for me, even though there are a few handy features, such as knowing my wife's phone went dead while she was out for the afternoon.

Other families are different and may find it very useful. If you're looking for an app like this, Life360—especially with the new Tile devices—works very well, and you should have a look at it.

If you're looking for an app to do anything nefarious, you'll find one. You can't blame a company that has done the work to legitimize itself.