plea to bike shops in london

hello,

do you own a bike shop in london? can you buy a load of these so i can get one please?

it looks like i can hide it in my saddle and it would save me from regularly leaving my pint to check on my bike and would be rather handy if it did get nicked

http://www.thetileapp.com/#faq

Yep. I'll take two.

last only a year and only ios compatible? pass

It's not a cycling accessories, so I doubt bicycle shop will stock those.

It won't really work anyway.

http://www.vice.com/read/should-we-be-freaked-out-about-tile-the-worlds-cheapest-new-location-tracker

"So basically, if you lose your keys and there’s a Tile attached to it, you will need to be within 100 to 150 feet of your lost property for your phone to recognize it’s in the presence of your precious, lost Tile."

Great idea.

We can't be far off a small gps version of this.

Great idea.

No it isn't.

^ Why not?

Due to it's range? Or due to the privacy issues?

The range specifically, making it even more redundant for a bicycle, you'll know it gone when it couldn't find it.

The range thing is the main killer, especially for bikes. If someone nicks it. They'll be beyond 50-150ft in seconds, making it useless for tracking and alerting.

Better off getting existing mini GPS trackers.

Isn't the point that once there are loads of them, they all link together so the range for one tile is basically irrelevant?

Edit: or that once loads of people use it, your tile can update you through everyone else's phones.

Isn't the point that once there are loads of them, they all link together so the range for one tile is basically irrelevant?

Edit: or that once loads of people use it, your tile can update you through everyone else's phones.

No. You need to know somebody with a Tile who is within 100 feet of your stolen bike and they can check their app for you. It's not really very useful.

Also dislike the idea that your product is of minimal usefulness when you buy it alone, and for it to have marginally more usefulness, you have to get lots of other people to buy the product too.

last only a year and only ios compatible? pass

Stopped reading here

i think it's awesome regardless of lasting a year or so only

i'm rarely 100ft from my bike and am one of those people who has to check on it every so often to make sure it's still there. pubs, restaurants, galleries etc

a score for a year's peace of mind (without having to get up) is worth it easy

No. You need to know somebody with a Tile who is within 100 feet of your stolen bike and they can check their app for you. It's not really very useful.

Watch the video on the site - all devices running the tile app report to the server if you mark a tiled item as 'missing', and if anyone with the tile app goes near it, then it's reported to you.

It was more the ios only that put me off

Nice but very flawed (as others have pointed out) idea.

If you just want to know if your bike is still there, just use a proximity sensor. Like one of those lost kid alarms.

The only way to make there be a big audience would be to give the device away and charge a small fee for monitoring perhaps.

Love the concept and simplicity
When the tech is honed and it will be useful.

too pricy at $18