Tile Mate (2024) Review: A $24.99 Tracker For Homes That Split Between Android And iPhone

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In this guide

THE SHORT VERSION

Tile Mate is Life360's square Bluetooth tracker for keys and bags: 37.6 mm on a side, 8 g, with a keyring hole cut into one corner and a button that doubles as an SOS trigger. The 2024 model carries a 100 dB speaker and a manufacturer rating of 350 feet of Bluetooth range, which is up from the 250 feet Life360 lists for the 2022 Mate.

The buyer this suits lives in a home where the phones are not all iPhones. Apple's AirTag pairs only with an iPhone or an iPad, so a mixed or Android home needs a tracker whose finding app runs on either platform, and Tile's does. The question then narrows to price: $24.99 for the Mate, $34.99 for the Tile Pro, or $29 for a single AirTag if every phone at home is an iPhone.

Our verdict

A $24.99 square that rings at 100 dB across 350 feet and pairs with either phone platform, which is what a mixed or Android household needs. Step up to the Pro only for a replaceable battery and a 500-foot range.

A good fit for: An Android or mixed-platform household that misplaces keys or a bag, wants the finding app on whatever phone is at hand, and prefers paying once to a subscription.
We would skip it if: A home that runs entirely on iPhones and wants Ultra Wideband precision finding through Apple's Find My network, or anyone who expects to swap the battery when it dies.

Reasons to consider it

Pairs through the free Life360 app on iOS and Android, so a mixed or Android home can set the Mate up and search for it from whatever phone is there
Rings at 100 dB across a rated 350 feet and sits in an IP68 body
A sealed three-year battery needs no charging and no coin-cell swaps, and the triple-press SOS alert costs nothing

The compromises

The battery is sealed inside, so when it is spent the Mate is replaced rather than refilled
Anti-Theft Mode hides the Tile from Scan and Secure, the very feature people run to expose an unwanted tracker
Life360's product page pushes a $9.99-per-month Silver trial that finding a Tile does not require

What we have not verified: Life360 publishes no Bluetooth version and no Ultra Wideband claim, so neither is asserted here, and the 350-foot range, 100 dB ring and three-year battery are manufacturer ratings rather than anything measured; Life360's own pages also give different water-depth figures for the same IP68 body, so only the rating is asserted. A browser check later on 2026-09-23 found Amazon.com selling the one-pack at the same $24.99; Target and Walmart prices were not read.

The things in this guide

A closer look at the products, who they may suit, and what to check before buying.

The tracker for a home that splits between Android and iPhone

Tile Mate (2024)

Set up and searched through the free Life360 app on iOS or Android, a 100 dB ring across a rated 350 feet, an IP68 body, and a triple-press SOS that Life360 says is free for all users.

Before you buy: The battery is sealed in for three years with no door, so a spent Mate is replaced rather than refilled, and the $9.99-per-month Life360 Silver tier the product page promotes is an upsell the tracker does not need.

$24.99 at Tile $24.99 at Amazon

Price checked September 23, 2026. Retailer prices can change.

A 350-foot ring, then the crowd behind it

A Tile Mate finds things two ways. Within range it plays a sound: Life360 rates the speaker at 100 dB and the Bluetooth reach at 350 feet, or about 106 meters, up from the 250 feet listed for the 2022 Mate. Outside that bubble the Tile reports its last known place on the map, and the app notifies you when the wider network refreshes its position. The Mate sits in the middle of the range table, with the Pro reaching 500 feet and the Sticker only 250.

That second layer is the crowd: other Life360 and Tile users' phones that pass your lost item and quietly report where it was seen. It is the same idea as Apple's Find My, running on a different set of phones, and it is why a Tile can still be useful a town away from where you left it. The catch is density, since a network is only as good as the devices near the thing you lost.

One app for both phones, and an SOS that costs nothing

The platform split is the reason to look at Tile at all. Apple's AirTag pairs only with an iPhone or an iPad, and a phone running Android can do nothing with one except receive an unwanted-tracking alert. Tile's app is built for both, so the Mate is set up and searched from iOS or Android through the free Life360 app; every phone in a mixed house can hunt for the keys, not just the one that happens to be an iPhone.

The button does more than ring. Pressed three times while the Tile is within Bluetooth range of a paired phone, it sends a discreet SOS to your Life360 Circle and your emergency contacts, and Life360 says that alert is free for every user; the app and an account are required. Summoning emergency dispatch, rather than just notifying your contacts, is sold as part of the paid Gold and Platinum memberships.

A sealed three-year battery in an IP68 shell

The Mate's battery is not meant to be changed. It is sealed inside for a rated three years, with no door, which is the clearest split from the Tile Pro, whose coin cell the owner swaps about once a year, and from the AirTag, which takes an ordinary CR2032. A sealed cell means no charging and no battery shopping; it also means that the day it dies, the Mate is a replacement rather than a repair.

The body is a 37.6 mm square, 7.4 mm thick and 8 g light, with a keyring hole cut into one corner so it hangs off keys or a bag zip without a holder. Life360 rates it IP68 and lists an operating range of 14 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. It is a tracker you can drop in a puddle and forget about, which suits something carried every day.

Anti-Theft Mode, and the scan it also hides from

Anti-Theft Mode is Tile's answer to a thief who sweeps a stolen bag for trackers. Turning it on hides every Tile on your account from Scan and Secure, the tool anyone with the Life360 app can run to spot a tracker traveling with them, so a thief cannot find and discard yours. The price is a heavy identity check: you must be 18 or over, upload a government ID and pass a selfie scan, then re-verify roughly every eleven months.

The trade-off cuts both ways, and Tile is explicit about it. Because Scan and Secure skips Tiles in Anti-Theft Mode, the feature people use to check for unwanted tracking will not surface one; owners must accept that their information can be shared with law enforcement, and Life360 says it will fine anyone convicted of using a Tile to stalk $1 million. Separately, the back of the Mate carries a QR code a finder can scan to reach your contact details when Notify When Found is on.

What $24.99 buys, and the subscription it does not need

On Life360's own store on 2026-09-23 the Mate is $24.99 for one, $44.99 for two and $79.99 for four, working out to $19.99 each in the four-pack, and Amazon.com sold the one-pack at the same $24.99 that day. The nearest step up is the Tile Pro at $34.99, ten dollars more for 500 feet of range, a 110 dB ring and that replaceable battery. Apple's AirTag is $29 for one, and it only looks like the cheaper sensible buy when every phone that will do the finding is an iPhone.

The checkout pushes a Life360 Silver trial that auto-renews at $9.99 a month, bundling location history, crash detection and $100 of lost-phone cover. None of that is needed to find a Tile, the free SOS works without a membership, and the paid Gold and Platinum tiers are what add emergency dispatch. Hardware cover is a 12-month limited warranty in the US covering manufacturing faults under normal non-commercial use.

When the Mate is the wrong $24.99

A home that runs entirely on iPhones should weigh the AirTag instead. It costs $29, taps into Apple's Find My network, which Apple puts at more than a billion iPhone, iPad and Mac devices, and adds Ultra Wideband precision finding that points an arrow at the item, while Life360 publishes no equivalent precision feature and no Ultra Wideband or Bluetooth-version claim for the Mate. The people who should stay with the Mate are the ones whose keys are hunted by an Android handset, because an AirTag has no setup path there.

Two other reasons to look past this one. To keep a tracker for years and change the cell yourself, the replaceable Pro is the model to buy, not the Mate. And the Mate is sold for objects: Scan and Secure exists so that a person can find a Tile traveling with them. If only one thing ever goes missing, one $24.99 Mate covers it.

How we put this together

Built from the product pages and listings below, without test scores or results we have not measured. Specifications and prices change, so check the original page for the exact model, current price, delivery, and returns.

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