Samsung appears to be near launching a brand new Tile-like machine for monitoring misplaced objects. The tracker, seemingly known as the Galaxy SmartTag, has been leaking out over the previous month, and there’s some hypothesis it could possibly be introduced alongside the Galaxy S21 later in January.
The Galaxy SmartTag would use Bluetooth to attach with close by units and broadcast its location, so homeowners may discover it later in the event that they misplace no matter it’s hooked up to. It’ll be powered by a replaceable button cell battery, in response to a regulatory submitting noticed by GSMArena, so that you received’t must throw it out and purchase a brand new one when the battery dies.
Samsung’s tracker sounds quite a bit like a Tile, and it’ll apparently look quite a bit like one, too. Leaks present the SmartTag as a small sq. with rounded corners and a gap at one edge for slipping a keychain or lanyard by. Pictures of the machine filed with Taiwan’s telecom regulator had been publicized by 91mobiles, and so they line up with an illustration of the gadget that was leaked from Samsung’s SmartThings app.
To date, it’s not clear that Samsung is doing something out of the unusual right here — this appears to be a fairly normal fare merchandise tracker. Samsung launched a tracker again in 2018 that related to cellphone networks for continuous monitoring. Extra just lately, in October, Samsung launched an app that helps homeowners of its devices find their present units utilizing Bluetooth, which looks as if groundwork for the upcoming SmartTag.
Principally, this looks as if extra unhealthy information for Tile, since Apple is rumored to have an merchandise tracker within the works, too. That would imply two main new rivals in a single 12 months, if each of those units truly ship.