If you’re a cat owner you can probably think of several occasions when you’ve been convinced that your cat is missing, only to eventually find it napping in some unlikely corner of your house, disgruntled that you've disturbed its day-long slumber.
The experience is no fun for you or your cat, and now Tile wants to help you avoid such situations with the launch of its new Tile for Cats collar attachment – a pet accessory that allows your cat to carry around a Tile tracker so that you can easily find it.
The new accessory costs $39.99 in the US (that's about £30 or AU$60, although there's no word yet on if or when it'll launch outside the US), and comes with a Tile Sticker tracker and a silicone collar attachment that the tracker can be adhered to. Tile Stickers are water resistant, are compatible with the Tile app on Android or iOS devices, and have a maximum range of 250ft (76m) – plus they’ll last for roughly three years before the battery runs out and the tracker needs to be replaced.
The collar attachment can fit collars that are between 3/8-inch to 3/4-inch wide, whether they have breakaway mechanisms or not.
While Tile does operate a tracker network that all Tile users are connected to – helping you to find tagged products if you’ve lost them while out and about, just like an Apple AirTag – the trackers work best as tools for finding objects (or now cats) around your home.
We’ve relied on our Tiles to find wallets and house keys after they’ve ended up down the back of the couch or in some other odd spot. The Tile app will show you how strong the signal from a connected Tile tracker is – giving you a 'hotter' or 'colder' reading as you get closer to or further from the missing item – and the tracker will beep, giving you an audio clue as to where it’s hiding.
Herding cats
This isn’t the first time Tile has recommended you use its devices to keep tabs on your feline.
Back in November 2022, it suggested that cat owners attach a Tile Mate or Tile Pro to their pet's collar. Based on the image Tile share, however, this solution looked a little clunky – the Tile tracker is much chunkier than a traditional tag, and not an option that owners might want to use if they’re worried about it getting caught on something and potentially causing harm to their cat rather than helping it.
This more streamlined solution using a Tile Sticker seems to be a much better approach to keeping a tab on your cat. Just remember that while this tracker collar might be a nifty helper in finding your cat on a day-to-day basis, it shouldn’t be considered an alternative to microchipping your cat. A microchip identifier greatly increases the chance of your cat being returned to you if it’s lost, been stolen, or been involved in an accident – and unlike a collar it can’t be removed or caught on things while your furry companion is exploring.
