Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsNifty, but battery non-rechargeable & needs annual replacement
Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2017
Product: Tile Slim
Rating: 3/5 (improvements needed)
My wife purchased this for me as a present, but upon reading the specs (and several reviews from trusted sources), I'm somewhat disappointed by a key design decision as well as some potential performance issues relevant to my locale, and as a result I'll be returning it unopened.
CONCERNS:
> BATTERY (-1.5 stars): Here's an important design issue to consider - the batteries in Tiles are NOT RECHARGEABLE and NOT REPLACEABLE, and ONLY LAST 1 YEAR (approximately) before dying ... after which you're on the hook for a never ending subscription plan for replacement tiles. In other words, the MFR deliberately embraced a disposable (and environmentally unfriendly) design in order to become permanent fiscal parasites on their customers. Those with money to burn and who don't care about the environment may disagree, but I personally dislike such tactics.
> PERFORMANCE (-1/2 star): Despite specs indicating 30-100 ft range, those figures are for ideal conditions with minimal walls/obstructions and minimal RF interference, whereas actual range performance in more physically cluttered rooms & signal-noisy conditions can be considerably less ... some have reported (and demonstrated on youtube) ranges as little as 10 ft, which is unacceptable to me. Combined with the muffling effect on the ringer of placing these inside a wallet or cellphone case, being able to successfully track, and hear, your intended tile may not be as easy as the rosy upbeat product description would have you believe.
Bottom line: If you have bluetooth headphones that work well several rooms away, and don't mind having to pay for annual replacements in perpetuity, then by all means buy these, and enjoy, because they'll probably work well for you. Unfortunately for me, I live in conditions that are less optimal for ideal bluetooth range performance (i.e., lots of walls, room clutter, and a crowded bluetooth landscape), and I strongly dislike the battery design. The Tiles are a great idea, but I'm holding off until they (hopefully) drop the non-rechargeable annual replacement business model, and instead upgrade their entire product line with either rechargeable or off-the-shelf replaceable batteries ... and hopefully increase the range/volume performance (perhaps by switching to something better than bluetooth). If/when one or both (preferably both) of those concerns are addressed, I'll happily repurchase this and freshen my review accordingly.
