Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

With the advent of tracking tags, tile was initially the premier name of what seems to be a broad market now. I used to rely on tile for the first few years until i grew tired of having to replace the whole device when the battery ran out after a year. The replacement plan was a rather expensive form of subscription which turned me away once alternatives with replaceable batteries. The most remarkeable part about that was the fact that now no-name devices get rebranded by different distributors. Anyway, as time went by, tile responded and at first made the batteries in the high-end tile sport replaceable although with a fairly high price tag. Now, the essentials pack landed on my door step and I was ready for another look. The pack includes a redesigned slim, which is now in the form factor of a credit card (unlike the original square design). The thickness is slightly reduced and now more compareable to two creditcards stacked. The idea is to place it in your wallet to keep track of that.For larger models that may be an option but the thickness and stiffness of the slim made it uncomfortable for me to actually use in my somewhat minimalistic wallet. However, my back pack didn't have those limitations and is now trackable. The Essentials don't include the high end sport, but one tile Mate. That is neither waterproof nor as attractive as the sport, but the CR1632 battery is now ... you guessed it ... replaceable! The other improvement is that the tile Mate is now capable to connect to your phone over up to 200 ft (double the original). That's too far for the louder sound to make a differencebut in general use it does help to overcome background noises more effectively. The dual color design with the silver tile button is also more attractive than the drab original (but a far cry from the Sport). There are two new devices included that are not even listed on the tile website (yet). The tile Sticker is a very different concept from the tile mate. The battery is not replaceable, but it's rated at 3 years. At the same thickness as the Mate, it's round and significantly smaller than the Mate (or especially the even larger Sport). There is no attachment loop as it's meant to be stuck to something with the adhesive backing, as the name "Sticker" may suggest. New (to me) is also the Premium Service which costs $2.50/month when paying on an annual basis or $2.99/month when going month by month. Included in this service are features like Smart Alerts, extended warranty, location history (30 days), and free battery replacement. The latter only applies to the devices that allow for a replacement, of course, but the Smart Alerts are interesting. It's a type of geofencing that basically determines your location (based on your smartphone) an the location of the included devices. Tile uses a message "It looks like you left home without your 'Keys'" as an example. I won't get far without keys anyway, but there sure are applications where you may benefit from such nanny service. (It's just difficult to make it useful for items you only occasionally need, and not to become annoying the other times.) Overall, this is a nice collection of different tile devices although it depends on your application if it's worth the investment. I am currently torn and may come back to render a more definitive verdict.