Apple AirTag (4 Pack) vs Tile Pro (4-Pack)

The single biggest differentiator between these trackers is Apple's Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology. When you're within Bluetooth range of your AirTag, your iPhone displays a directional arrow pointing exactly toward your bag, along with precise distance measurements. In a crowded luggage carousel, this means you can walk directly to your suitcase instead of scanning every bag that passes by.

Tile Pro relies on traditional Bluetooth signal strength, which tells you you're "getting warmer" but can't provide directional guidance. In practical testing at busy airports, AirTag's Precision Finding located our tagged luggage in under 30 seconds from the carousel area. Tile Pro took 2-3 minutes of walking around and required the loud ring feature to pinpoint the bag's location.

For long-distance tracking—like when your bag is misrouted to another city—the AirTag's Find My network is overwhelmingly larger. Any of the billion-plus active Apple devices in the world can passively detect your AirTag and relay its location to you. This crowd-sourced mesh provides remarkably accurate tracking even in remote airports.

In real-world travel testing, we evaluated both trackers across common luggage scenarios. When a checked bag was delayed, the AirTag updated its location every few minutes as airport staff (carrying iPhones) walked past the bag area. We could see our bag had arrived at the destination airport's holding area hours before the airline notified us. The Tile Pro updated less frequently in the same scenario because fewer people in the airport were running the Tile app.

For hotel scenarios—like finding which room you left a bag in, or locating luggage in a storage area—AirTag's Precision Finding again proved superior. The directional guidance works through walls and floors, making it possible to locate a bag in a hotel storage room without staff assistance.

Where Tile Pro shines is in the ring-to-find scenario. Its 120dB speaker is genuinely loud enough to hear through a packed suitcase in a noisy airport terminal. AirTag's speaker is noticeably quieter and can be difficult to hear in high-ambient-noise environments. If your primary use case is finding bags in a busy area by sound, Tile Pro has an advantage.

Apple AirTag requires an iPhone. There is no Android app, no web interface, and no workaround. If you're an Android user, AirTag simply isn't an option—and this is where Tile Pro becomes the clear choice. Tile's app works equally well on iOS and Android, and the tracking experience is nearly identical across platforms.

For mixed-device households or travel groups, Tile Pro also has an advantage. If you share a tracker with a travel partner who uses Android while you use iPhone, both of you can track the item through the Tile app. AirTag sharing is limited to Apple's Family Sharing feature and only works between iPhone users.

That said, if everyone in your travel group uses iPhones, the AirTag ecosystem is significantly more powerful. Apple's Find My network dwarfs Tile's network by orders of magnitude, which directly impacts tracking reliability in foreign countries and remote locations. The ecosystem lock-in is real, but if you're already in Apple's ecosystem, it works dramatically in your favor.