A friend recently told me about Tile. You attach these itty bitty thingies to keys, electronic devices, or any other small, losable item imaginable so they can be located with your phone in a high-tech version of "Marco, Polo". Since we had discovered the hard way that you can't use "Find Device" apps when the lost device runs out of batteries, it seemed like a good solution for us. So I bought 12. I stuck one on the twins' devices as soon as they arrived, and sure enough I used the Tile app and tracked them down the very same day when they went missing.
My son had a Lego case for his device, and I hesitated. I wondered if the Tile would fail to stick to the dimpled surface and fall off. Did I need to buy him a different case? While I pondered this, it went missing. Of course. I turned the house upside down twice, asked my husband to rifle through the garbage (more than usual), and lost sleep over my tragic error.
For three weeks my son watched his little sisters enjoy themselves on their devices, occasionally spying over their shoulder. Once I think I heard him try to convince one of the twins that they would really enjoy "Sonic the Hedgehog". But he settled on watching Elmo videos and these painfully slow videos of people opening Kinder eggs for the big reveal, narrating each scrape of the foil like a wildlife documentary. He didn't sulk, whine, or complain; he didn't try to steal one or throw a tantrum. He looked somewhat forlorn but he acted more mature about it than I would have.
One morning, while he was curled up in my arms he asked, "Mommy, did you find my iPod yet?"
"No, sweetheart. I have looked everywhere and can't find it."
"Mommy, can I please get another one?"
My sweet boy, who can walk in and out of toy stores without asking for anything, who hadn't driven me crazy for the last three weeks, finally asked for a replacement. Because I felt it was partially my fault, I agreed. A few days later he received a new iPod with a Tile stuck firmly on its back.
A short while later we all went to the community center to escape a stupefying summer heatwave. We agreed that our son could bring his iPod just this one time because my husband and I needed to catch up on work and knew it would keep him busy.
When we got home, my husband asked where the iPod was. As fate would have it, the community center is in one of the last few places on Earth that is a black hole of zero connectivity. The "Find Device" app would not work, nor were we within range for the Tile to work either.
So off my husband went to scour the community center. After half an hour he texted that he couldn't find it anywhere.
"Did you look in the bushes where he peed right before we left?"
Two minutes later: "Good call. Found it. No discernible splash back."
I still love my Tiles and not a week goes by that I don't use it, but we've definitely proven that it is by no means foolproof.