Tile, the company selling small trackers that help you find your lost gear, has announced a partnership with Intel that will bring its technology into laptops starting as early as the end of this year.
This won't be the first time we've seen Tile integrated into a laptop; the HP Elite Dragonfly has that honor, but presumably, this partnership will help to standardize the integration so it can be added across different makes and models (via The Verge).
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Tile and Intel haven't released any details about how the trackers will be implemented, but our sister site, Tom's Guide, reviewed the latest Tile Pro and had mostly positive things to say about it, like how it gets 400-foot range and has an excellent app for tracking location history.
For those unfamiliar with Tile, once a tracker passes outside of the range of the user, it can leverage other Tile users to help you locate your device. This gives you a better chance of finding your device (particularly in heavily populated environments) even if it has gotten quite far away from you.
We're curious whether you'll need a specific Tile Premium subscription if your laptop has a Tile inside. Currently, the $3-a-month or $30-a-year subscription offers free battery replacements along with some extra functionality for users of the traditional tiles. Obviously, the battery piece will be irrelevant for laptop users, so hopefully, it would come at a reduced cost.
This integration seems like an excellent union that could potentially save you from having to replace a lost or stolen laptop, especially if you're a student, frequent traveler, or work with your laptop outside of the house.
