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Comment by crhulls | Hacker News Reader

I'm the CEO of Life360, Tile's parent company. I chimed in on another comment but adding to the conversation directly here. I'm biased, but I am surprised how little pushback this is getting as AirTags explicitly are NOT meant to deter theft - to combat stalking (which is exceedingly rare) Apple notifies you if a tag you do not own is near you. That goes for thieves - they will be told an AirTag is nearby.

At Tile we just launched an Anti-Theft feature where you can turn off stalking notifications if you share your government issued ID and agree to extremely stringent penalties for misuse, including a large fine.

All Life360 users are now scanning for Tile devices, and that equates to over 10% of all phones in the country, so our network in any moderately dense area is almost as good as Apple's. And, we are cross-platform.

https://chrishulls.medium.com/tile-is-taking-a-different-app...

We've put a ton of thought into this problem so happy to answer any questions.

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I bought a bunch of Tiles, and after a year the non-replaceable batteries failed and I got an offer to replace them at 15% off. Talk about garbage. Your product isn't good for anything if it just stops working after a year and needs a full replacement.

The newer models have replaceable batteries

aside from the batteries, my Tile devices just straight up do not activate most of the time when I actually need them. I'll be a few feet away and they won't make any sound // won't connect when I try to ping them. AirTags have been FAR more reliable, and the direction finding is next-level.

What platform are you on and what models? We in general have stats that show we are the most reliable product from a connectivity standpoint but I know there are still issues. Apologies you are in that bucket.

I'm a tile user, and indeed they seem a bit unreliable. I got one for my wife to keep in a known location because she misplaces her phone, and it works to signal the phone maybe 4 out of 5 times.

I have one on my dog's collar, in a 3D printed enclosure. He got out a few weekends ago and ran all around town, and there weren't any breadcrumbs on the app. It's one of the mid-range models rather than the high-end ones, though.

I have the high-end ones in our cars, and there's plenty of activity in the app.

While I pay for the premium service, it's too much hassle to deal with the "free" battery replacements. I just buy bulk packs of coin cells on Amazon for $0.10 each.

> I'm a tile user, and indeed they seem a bit unreliable. I got one for my wife to keep in a known location because she misplaces her phone, and it works to signal the phone maybe 4 out of 5 times.

Mobile is hard.

Google's Find My Phone fails to wake up my pixel 7 about half the time I used it, even if I am staring at the phone. Sometimes the alert goes off half an hour later.

My fitbit's "find your phone" feature also works less than half the time.

I am genuinely surprised that my wife's apple watch can locate her phone every time she asks it to.

Find My Phone has always worked reliably for me, at least. I suspect the Tile's reliability issues come down to inconsistencies across all Android versions, and perhaps a relative level of cheesiness within the Tile app compared to Apple's stack.

We have updated all models to have either replaceable batteries or a 3-year life. Given how beaten up devices on things like keys get we are getting very good feedback on the 3 year models.

We are also giving away free tiles to paid Life360 members, which is probably not as relevant to the hacker news crowd but we do have over 20% of US families using our service. We think tiles should be free with membership, including getting new devices.

What was the justification for the original 1 year with no replaceable? It was so shady.

That was a vestige of the business well before I was involved. I don't think there was anything nefarious. These are devices that get beaten up quite a bit and the idea was they were cheap enough that it made sense to replace annually.

We have now moved to either 3 year disposable units or replaceable batteries. 3 years feels like a reasonable lifespan. And, our plan is to give them away for free to Life360 members (which is probably a small portion of HN readers but a high percentage of traditional families)

> the idea was they were cheap enough that it made sense to replace annually.

I can assure you the original packaging didn't make this explicit.

It was absolutely nefarious. The only reason the device stopped working was because the $2 coin cell battery died, and it was explicitly designed NOT to be replaceable. It's beyond wasteful and I would guess I'm not the only former customer left with a bad taste in their mouth.

So you claim 20% of US families, or about 25 million use your service.

Your website is showing me "502 Bad Gateway" right now.

he, and his company, are blatantly lying. they are simple scammers - much like the emails you get about penis pills.

20% of US families haven't even heard of his service. heck, not even 2%, not even 2% of the families who work in tech. US-wide, Maybe 20% know what an airtag is.

go to walmart, ask anyone there if they've heard of.. well, I forgot what his service is called already. best leave it at that. something about a new cryptocoin I think it was.

Life360 is very common in the area that I’m in to track/keep tabs on children. Go to Walmart, they might not know. Go to a highschool and I’ll bet every single one of them knows what it is. Crypto has nothing to do with this.

cool. so take the 2000 kids in that school, they probably belong to 700 families. life360 knows what kids belong to what families I'm guessing?

what about families without children? what about a couple of old people?

for your little area where everyone knows what it is, there are 330million more people, half of whom empty their webmail folder when windows gives them an out of space message. you really think 1 in 5 families nationwide know of this niche thing? that literally makes zero sense.

what makes even less sense, the claim from this company is not only do 1 in 5 families know about it - they own one.

here's my theory: the scammers defined family as "family tree" - and if your married second cousin you've met once has this airtag clone, they count it. but if your married but don't have kids, you're not counted at all.

fake numbers from a scammer, for a product that's not unique or first, or anything more functional than a simple app on a phone.

I'm editing this comment to be more of a question.

I'd like the understand the reflex to immediately assume this is a lie. The information is readily verifiable as we are a public company and 3rd party sites like data.ai will verify this.

What is your impetus to make such strong accusations from what in my view can only be your intuition? I don't think you have taken the time to try to diligence your claims.

Not only is the information not available, it's not obtainable. They sell a little gadget. They do not know if the people buying them are a family, fratboys in a household, 3 people dating a triangle, or just randos on the street.

The reason for my "impetus" is when a claim is this riduculous, I don't need your information that's as easily verifiable as "horse dewormer cures covid."

the reflex to bs is to gag. your reflex is to blindly accept jesus into your life because he walked on water.

We use a tracker to track our cat who we allow outdoors every day until an hour before sunset.

We initially used a Tile and then decided to switch to an AirTag since it had a larger network.

After 4 months of the air tag we're looking to switch back. Most of what the tags do is allow us to know when we're within X number of feet of our cat. The Tile had a better range and was lighter. But most importantly, we could have multiple accounts track the same Tile. Somehow Apple's airtags are missing this really critical feature that has come up again and again for us. If one of us is not home we need to be able to have another one of us be able to track her down but we simply cannot

To be honest, the biggest reservation for me personally has been the company itself. It seems like an obvious industry where a very in-your-face-look-how-trustworthy-we-are approach to marketing like Mullvad the VPN service does is the right move. Mullvad's "only one price no matter how many years you buy it for" and "we never have a sale" on top of their just straight up "our quality speaks for itself" product seems like the perfect approach for a company where trust is so critical. In contrast, our Tile tried to force us into buying a brand new Tile when the battery died instead of just... letting us get a new battery. We had to cut it open and then buy special glue to glue it back together. I understand not all the models do this but... really? This doesn't seem like the market where you should be trading customer trust for a quick buck.

Another thing I've yet to see from Tile/Chipolo/AirTag marketing is specific mention for our use-cases of ~~tracking~~(making easy to find) our outdoor cat. The network effect in this market is killer but this seems like an obvious audience that I'm shocked no one is targetting. People walk their dogs and people who let their cats out often have to check NextDoor or FB when something comes up. The point is that they talk. And the thing about the network effect with bluetooth trackers is that the network effect is localized. Meaning Apple can dominate NYC and Chipolo can dominate SF but if everyone in my suburb of Chicago for whatever reason happens to be using BlahBlah, I'm obviously gonna go with BlahBlah. I want my cat to be findable and the most important thing is what my neighbors are doing. A targeted approach seems obvious yet it's rare to see a product specifically marketed for that

> But most importantly, we could have multiple accounts track the same Tile. Somehow Apple's airtags are missing this really critical feature that has come up again and again for us. If one of us is not home we need to be able to have another one of us be able to track her down but we simply cannot

I really hate Apple's insistence on using 1 account for everything (I mean EVERYTHING). I think it was what finally made me put my foot down on using iCloud and not wanting an apple card savings account. Plus their account management system sucks. It's the only system I've used that randomly forgets I'm logged in and demands me to log in again on my computers, phones, etc.

We just launched Tile for cats and you can share your Tile devices and have them appear in Life360 along with your family members. Give it a go!

https://www.tile.com/product/tile-for-cats-white

I would seriously recommend you advertise this heavily on NextDoor paid ads - will make an absolute truckload of cash!!!!!!!

Good idea! I just shared this note with our marketing team

Does that mean Tile will be the preferred choice for wealthy stalkers?

What legal basis do you have for enforcing a $1mil civil penalty on stalkers?

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems out of proportion to any damages sustained to Tile and likely unenforceable (not to mention uncollectable)?

(FWIW: I think ID verification is a good non-technical deterrent to what is largely a non-techincal problem!)

It’s a terms of service you opt in to. Unclear how well it holds up in court but I dare anyone to try! We will go all out making an example out of people who abuse the system. So far we have not had a single report of misuse of the anti-theft feature.

I am not a stalker, but that agreement is almost certainly unenforceable in civil court. It violates the basic principles of consideration and equity. There is extensive case law on those areas, which you might want to look into before wasting people's time making empty threats and bullshiting about subjects you clearly don't understand.

We are a public company with an audit and risk committee, multiple in-house lawyers, and external counsel. This was heavily discussed.

Perhaps a court would limit the fine, but liquidated damages are a commonly used concept, and I don't think most people will tempt fate.

Aggressive stalkers will buy dedicated GPS devices - this is a real roadblock.

I don't believe you. I think you're either lying, or misunderstood what your external counsel told you. If you want us to take your claim seriously then post copies of their opinion letters.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> I don't think most people will tempt fate.

In so far as I would hope most people would avoid doing business with companies that mention $1 million dollar civil lawsuits in their terms of service.

> I don't think most people will tempt fate.

You're right: they'll just use your far more well-established competitor without such ridiculous language.

Real stalkers aren't going to care about a ToS -- they are already intent on violating criminal law. This will likely just push people to use fake/stolen ID and payment information, making it even harder to track and unravel. Your exposure to various fraud comorbidity as a result of this policy is ever likely.

Additionally, most stalkers know their victims, so you are entering into a vast grey area that civil courts do not have prior established case law (vis-a-vis a third party as you are) to adjudicate and for which the burden of proof is on your lawyers who won't have the same powers to subpoena information as is available in criminal matters. It's also unlikely stalkers would have significant assets, making civil enforcement of this policy potentially very costly and time consuming for your company. Making a mistake with an enforcement action or loosing a case would be incredibly poor optics for your company.

Sending a letter to your legal staff for a cursory review and getting their rubber stamp won't change the potential legal outcome for your company or shield you from liability, when (not if) the time comes, and likely opens you to substantial liability should the product be used in the service of a crime.

That said, if I really want to stalk someone your app already provides everything that is needed, and in fact it is currently being used by sex traffickers and domestic violence abusers to track, stalk and exploit their victims en mass [1].

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2023/04/06/sex-t...

The irony of that article is that the traffickers were sent to jail because of our app. We are unapologetic about working with law enforcement.

>put a ton of thought into this problem

question: have you put any thought into the fact that you cannot fine Anyone, since you're not the government, and have zero authority to do so? "fine" lol. all you can do, is ban people from using your service and attempt to bully them by blatantly lying.

There are third party apps that will see right through your "secret stalking mode".

Basically, since apple doesn't give a damn about android users, they just unleashed airtags on the world with no way to be alerted you are being stalked if you only have android. Months later apple did release some half assed android app that doesn't do automatic scanning.

So android users need to use something like airguard and that just so happens to also snitch on tiles.

It is all about deterrence levels. Thieves aren't completely dumb but they also take the path of least resistance. We are going to do things like rotating MACs that will make it harder for generic apps to be useful and further make thieves have to be more intentional.

Airguard can still see devices with rotating MACs. They just pollute the detection list a bit and draw attention to themselves.

Actually re non-iPhone detection: I’ve been annoyed by air tags beeping and it’s definitely the case that the new anti-stalking features on AirTags make them rather noisy and easy to find as a result. You have to get very creative with the hiding spot so that thieves know it exists (they can hear it) but they can’t find it, remove it or take out the battery to disable it. I’ve heard stories about people planting more than one AirTag on their bike, such as dropping one in the frame in a hard to reach area, and having opportunists decide to drop the bike off at a used store than deal with the AirTag they can’t find that keeps making noise.

I'm curious how those third party apps work. Are they tailored to specific vendors' beacons, or do they operate generically on all BLE announcements? I'm curious because I have a medical implant that broadcasts a burst of announcement frames once every minute.

The Tile app constantly nags me in ugly ways to give it always on location permissions. How is that data used beyond helping people find their items?

We need that for background scanning; Apple just cheats and does the same without really asking. We have never sold Tile user data. We did have a data platform for Life360, which we believe did no harm, but we exited the business as it seemed to cause confusion and was a very small part of our revenue

Thank you for your response. Please just let me say no once and for all. An occasional app banner is fine, but the system notifications is a step too far. That pushiness is what gave me the impression the location permission is more valuable to Tile than it is to me.

The system wouldn't work without location permission.

It works fine to find your own devices by giving it permission 'while using the app'.

The primary use case for these things requires other participants in the network. It doesn't look like this is a good product for you, yeah.

I'm using Tile Stickers the same way they're depicted on their website, as a TV remote finder. Is that wrong?

I use trackers for my keys and wallet, which wouldn't work very well if I only granted the location permission when in use. Granting background location permission means that I can get the last seen location of my items when I'm already out of range, and I can help others find their lost items, too, just like they can help me, as part of the network.

> "We did have a data platform for Life360, which we believe did no harm"

I'm confused. Life360 was found selling precise user location data to third party data brokers[0]. It doesn't take a creative mind to see the harm (or even potential harm) caused here. I could never trust you or your company.

[0] https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/12/06/the-popular-family-...

> A former X-Mode engineer said the raw location data the company received from Life360 was among X-Mode’s most valuable offerings due to the sheer volume and precision of the data. A former Cuebiq employee joked that the company wouldn’t be able to run its marketing campaigns without Life360’s constant flow of location data.

...

> Two former Life360 employees also told The Markup that the company, while it states it anonymizes the data it sells, fails to take necessary precautions to ensure that location histories cannot be traced back to individuals. They said that while the company removed the most obvious identifying user information, it did not make efforts to “fuzz,” “hash,” aggregate, or reduce the precision of the location data to preserve privacy.

> The former X-Mode engineer said that the company also received raw data from Life360. The company relies on its customers to obfuscate that data based on their specific applications, Hulls added.

The entire premise of "found" is a bit nuts as we are a public company and disclosed this regularly and consistently, including how we used the data. The coverage we got in the MarkUp was the most unethical I have seen in my life with reporters literally cutting/pasting parts of quotes to make a point.

We had a data platform for targeted ads. I realize that isn't popular, but we were always transparent. We exited the business because it wasn't worth the controversy.

Please go look at our public filings before you trust this article. We were so transparent about everything we did both to our users and the public.

I do think our record of zero instances of harm show we had good safeguards in place.

Can you link those filings for us? The article indicated that it was much larger slice of revenue than your comments here suggested.

Sure. You can go back all the way to our IPO. It is all in there, including the % of our revenue. https://investors.life360.com/investor-relations/

Once you have been covered in the press you start to realize how blatantly they lie. I'm not sure if it has always been this way but I encourage everyone to have an extremely skeptical eye to any news org that has advocacy as their mission

I miss when I could just use the Tile app without the constant nags to upgrade to enter into a subscription.

I already paid for my Tile devices at retail and only access them over Bluetooth locally anyway. Please stop trying to squeeze more money out of me.

Wouldn't the notification that an AirTag is located somewhere in the vehicle they're thinking of stealing deter them from stealing it?

Not if it helps them find and remove the AirTag. It might have a deterring effect if the Airtag was somewhere hard to remove

The notification doesn't fire until you've been moving along with the tag for a while, so the vehicle has already been stolen by the time the thieves are aware there's an AirTag present. I guess it might encourage them to dump the vehicle somewhere and abandon it, and you can then go pick it up using the AirTag's last known location. Doesn't really prevent the initial theft, but improves your chances for recovering the vehicle.

In my experience they just rip the AirTag off once it notifies them and then continue on their merry way.

Seems like you would want to install it somewhere that is difficult to reach. Behind the dashboard for example, something that requires some work to access. Maybe wrapped in a bit of sound deadening material to make it harder to locate.

How many car thieves carry iPhones? That Venn diagram will have an overlapping area, but I'll bet it's not that big.

They’d get one if they do it regularly. We catch the stupid ones but not all of them are stupid. I imagine most are aware of AirTags and could get the cheapest iPhone to detect them.

Why wouldn't most car thieves have iPhones?

Because most people who aren't car thieves don't.

Globally, sure. In the US, it looks like iOS is about 57% market share. I suspect it's even higher in New York City.

It's pure speculation, but I wonder if the average car thief is more likely to own an iPhone as a form of status symbol? Or, is the average car thief more likely to be using burner phones from Walmart?

I don't have an AirTag, but I think if you get the notification you can make the tag play noise to help find it.

Yeah, the point of AirTags was never anti-theft.

The point was probably anti-theft but the tragedy of the commons got the best of them.

stringent penalties for misuse, including a large fine.

How exactly does a non-government entity impose a fine?

It’s a terms of service agreement. We would have to sue

Doesn't that seem like an unrealistic solution? If you actually start suing customers over terms of service, you're going to rapidly alienate your customer base.

As a generally reasonable person, I have no interest in submitting anything more official than a valid credit card number to any company for lack of any legal need.

It seems like it would be wise to avoid any pretense if you want to start selling covert tracking as a premium feature. Either do it or don't, but don't try to offload the moral implications onto your customers by "policing" them.

One day some bored and rich person might call you on it. You’d have to sue and win otherwise it will make it harder for others to take the claim seriously.

1000% self serving.

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