Smart item tracker Chipolo, a competitor to Apple’s AirTag and others, chose to grow its business by partnering with the Cupertino tech giant, not fighting them as rival Tile has. When Apple opened up its Find My app to third-party devices, Chipolo embraced the ability to target iPhone users with versions of its Bluetooth-powered lost property trackers, the Chipolo ONE and Chipolo CARD, which are specifically designed to work with the software. work from Apple. Now the company is doing the same for Android with its latest batch of new products.
Amid the deluge of announcements from Google’s I/O developer conference last week, including updates to the Android search network, Chipolo also unveiled a debut batch of devices that will work with Google’s Find My Device app – the Android equivalent of Apple’s Find My.
While the Apple versions of the lost property trackers will be known as the Chipolo ONE Spot and Chipolo CARD Spot, the Android versions will be called the Chipolo ONE Point and the Chipolo CARD Point. They are competitively priced at $28 and $35 respectively, or sold in a bundle with 1 CARD Point and 2 ONE Point trackers for $77.
Image Credits: Chipolo
You can also buy the trackers in packs of four, which cost $79 for a pack of ONE Point devices or $112 for a pack of four CARD Point devices.
At Google I/O, the tech giant announced improvements to its Find My Device network, making it easier to locate lost items by calling them or viewing their location on a map, even when they’re offline. The company also announced support for a wide range of third-party devices, including these new trackers from Chipolo and others like Tile and Pebblebee, plus audio devices like Pixel Buds and headphones from Sony and JBL. This makes the network more competitive with Apple’s Find My, which today supports a range of devices, including more than just trackers.
Timed with Google’s announcement, Chipolo unveiled its Find My Device compatible trackers, which will come in a new shade of off-white. This sets them apart from their iOS-friendly counterparts, which come in black. (However, the original Chipolo products come in a variety of colors, but work with the company’s own app, not the smartphone makers’ finder networks.)
The Chipolo ONE Point key finder is the Android-powered version of the small, rounded tracker designed to be attached to your key fob, for example, or clipped onto anything else you want to track, such as your luggage or handbag. Meanwhile, the Chipolo CARD Point is a sleek, rectangular tracker that slides into your wallet’s credit card slot, for example, or pops into your passport book.
Image Credits: Chipolo
Both work with devices running Android 9 and above with Google Play Services installed.
As with other trackers, the new devices pair easily with your smartphone, offer some water resistance (IPX5 rating), and have up to 2 years of battery life. The battery is replaceable and the company offers a refurbishment and battery recycling program with discounts on new products.
The devices also have a loud ringtone of either 120dB for Chipolo ONE Point and 105dB for Chipolo CARD Point, which helps you locate misplaced items by playing a sound within a range of 200ft / 60m. In case of loss or theft, Android users can now use Google’s Find My Device network. This network – made up of “billions of Android devices around the world”, as it was described at I/O – uses Bluetooth technology to detect missing items and then communicates their approximate location back to the original owner.
To date, the 10-year-old Chipolo has sold more than 3.5 million of its lost property trackers worldwide and its sales have grown to millions in the double digits, the company told us at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show.
“We are proud to partner with Google and be part of their Find My Device network. We believe this takes the search experience to a whole new level as it gives Android users the peace of mind of locating their properties using Google’s global Find My Device Network and added privacy and security that unknown tracker alerts provide,” said Primož Zelenšek, CEO and co-founder of Chipolo, in a statement “Android users can now place Chipolo tags on their belongings to better keep track of what’s important — whether that’s keys, wallets or briefcases,” he added.