[crhulls]

I'm the CEO of Tile and we are working on a line of products for theft.

As a genuine question, I'm very surprised that many people don't seem concerned that AirTags alert thieves to their presence. If your bike is stolen the thief will get the notification, even if they are on Android (with the new shared platform rogue tag detection).

I'm trying to understand the user psychology here - not pitch our own products.

Do you have any specific features you would like to prevent theft?

[samstave]

Howdy!

Great to meet you. I have a ton of thoughts on this matter, but not well threaded for quick reply: so forgive the stream-of-thought nature of the following.

There is no real secret answer to stopping bike thieves, because the primary problem is both cultural and infrastructure.

We dont have bike culture that allows for safe bike leaving-about, and we dont have bike infrastructure for safe bike locking-about. (Bike Hack SF: Take your nice bike into a nice hotel and tip the DoorMan $5 to check your bike into luggage check rather than lock it up)

So, my airtag is in a case with security bolts under the bottle cage - and its more a check that I can know where it was last seen. Though I didnt remove the chirper.

What if you could have a TILE that is the fob for this battery. Where the battery wont go unless the paired Tile Fob is present?

A Lora Tile would be killer If you had a Lora network on this battery, with a TILE app infra on top of it and all the batteries talked to eachother - you built an anti-theft-mesh so all the bikes tiles all tell eachother about themselves.

Tile integration with Shimano Motors and e-tube iso app to stop the motor from running unless Tile fob/phone app present. A magnetic Solonoid crank-shaft-blocker.

And above all else pushing for better bike policies in municipalities.

[crhulls]

We are doing a satellite integration with Hubble Network - 24/7 global coverage, no increase in battery life. It sounds like scifi but 2 satellites are up. Give us a year...

[samstave]

I want to build things using Instant DB... I keep finding ShinyObjects here, but - Tiles using a LORA Network which updates a csv/json style payload and transfers GPS through lora messages.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41287031

Can you manage TILEs via Meshtastic? https://meshtastic.org/docs/software/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40llxjrIG3w&t=44s

I think there a lot of interesting things to make bike mesh a part of a security fabric - but ensuring that there is no way to spy on location data thats not yours? Doubt thats possible...

[samstave]

Hi - Who is 'we' and how can I get involved.

I tried to build this after leaving Lockheed in 2007 where we built the RFID tracking for .mil as Savi Networks..

All the cell integrations (pre IoT) were cost prohibitive.

Its wonderful to see how much has taken place in this area since a bunch of us tried and failed to get funding back then :-)

[crhulls]

My cofounder from Life360, started Hubble Network, with this in mind. Add me on LinkedIn - Chris Hulls - and I'll reply to you there.

[yardie]

The fact that something is being tracked and the thieves know it’s being tracked is a deterrent itself. Like the value of stolen iPhones crashed because activation lock made them worthless. So they moved on to Samsung Galaxies, until they implemented their own activation lock.

If you steal a bike with a tracker on it you’ll probably leave it right there for the real owner to find.

[crhulls]

Of course I know this, but I am trying to go deeper. With AirTags and the new standards you literally can find and disable the tag for anyone using the Google or Apple networks.

I am surprised that people think the benefits of AirTags outweigh the downsides given the alternatives, of which we are one. I'm mainly just trying to learn.

I also think you probably are overestimating the deterrent value. Thieves are not necessarily thoughtful and the alerts aren't real time. Once they get the alert they might ditch the bike, but if it is back at their garage they will probably disable or remove it.

I also am a bit triggered by this line "Honestly, you as the CEO should know this." which is on the edge of being an ad hominem. Why did you choose to include this? And wouldn't you know that I know these things? Like I am asking questions to get nuanced user feedback. Do you think someone who runs a consumer product company (I started Life360, Tile's owner), isn't deeply aware of how customers think?

[yardie]

First, I want to apologize. The last statement came out a lot more combatant than I realized. So I removed it.

I was a Tile wallet user until I stopped carrying a wallet completely. There are 2 types of thieves: the professional and the opportunistic. Opportunistic, the majority, aren't doing more than they have to and if the bike has a tracker they know about it makes it less appealing. And if you can get the casual thief to give up immediately then the device has already payed for itself.

The professional will chop it immediately. I see kids in my neighborhood with $2000+ Trek Marlins, with all the expensive mountain bike parts removed. They simply wanted a bike to freestyle on. And doing all that probably took hours if not days. The professional is not going to spend anymore time than they have to disable a tracker when there are better options all around.

[crhulls]

Interesting, thanks for the insights.

[bosch_mind]

Im curious how Tile addresses this concern for the safety of individuals themselves in the opposite direction. I know people who have been stalked and assaulted before. Does tile have protections against this for people hiding tiles in your vehicle or bag?

[lanstin]

Because loosing something to theft is bad but being stalked is worse.

[oulipo]

Hey! We'd love to chat to see if we could integrate in our battery! Can you message us at [e-mail] ?