Tile to be acquired by Location Sharing app Life360, as competition with AirTag intensifies

Tile — the pioneer of Bluetooth tracking — popularized locating personal belongings through its expanding network of connected devices. However, earlier this year, the company found itself facing a serious rival with an even larger network — Apple. AirTags have a prominent advantage that Tile struggles to compete with. The coin-sized Apple trackers integrate into the Find My Network, making them discoverable through other Apple devices, such as iPhones. The location sharing app Life360 has shared that it plans to acquire Tile next year.

As reported by The Verge, Life360 has announced its plans to acquire Tile for $205 million. The AirTag competitor will still operate with its own brand identity. However, it will tightly integrate with Life360’s services to further expand its network and features. As a result, this acquisition is expected to contribute to both companies’ international growth plans.

For the unfamiliar, Life360 offers location sharing services, similar to those of Apple’s Find My Friends. However, the former is platform agnostic, which gives it an advantage over Apple’s services. Both Tile and Life360 support Android and iOS, and the integration will only further grow their covered network. Life360 is active on 33 million smartphones, and it’s expected to expand Tile’s Finding Network by around 10 folds.

The deal is excepted to close in the first quarter of 2022, and Tile will retain its current team and leadership after the acquisition. Afterwards, customers of both services will get perks, such as free Tiles when upgrading to Life360 Platinum and vice versa. This will encourage people to use both services, which will only make them more popular. Chris Hulls — Life360’s cofounder and CEO — states:

… we believe the launch of the Apple AirTags is the tipping point where all the devices you care about will become location-enabled. While it may sound counterintuitive, or even a bit corporate-speak, that competition from a platform giant is a good thing, we genuinely believe it is one of the best things ever to happen to Tile.

He adds:

And, as an important sub-point, once this category fully emerges, Android users will demand a solution too, and as of now, we are the only real cross-platform game in town.

Whether this acquisition will stop Apple from dominating the Bluetooth tracking field or not is yet to be seen.

Do you use any Bluetooth tracking devices? If so, which? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post Tile to be acquired by Location Sharing app Life360, as competition with AirTag intensifies appeared first on xda-developers.

from xda-developers https://ift.tt/3oT8M4l
via IFTTT