Intel and Tile team up to bring tracking to laptops

Tile Laptop
Tile Laptop (Image credit: Tile)

What you need to know

  • Tile and Intel are partnering to bring integrated tracking to laptops.
  • Tracking will operate over Bluetooth and work even while the PC is asleep.
  • Tile says it expects to have Tile integration headed to PCs later this year.

Tile and Intel are working together to bring Tile tracking to Windows laptops. In a press release today, Tile said that it expects "updated Intel solutions" to be available to OEMs starting later in 2020, putting Tile tracking on pace to start appearing in more laptops, potentially, by the end of the year.

Tile has already experimented with bringing its trackers to the PC market. At CES 2020, HP announced the Elite Dragonfly, a laptop that includes a hardware solution for integrated Tile tracking. However, in working with Intel, Tile hopes to make this capability available to many more PC makers.

"This is the first finding technology solution to-market for a broad group of PC OEMs and means upcoming Intel-powered laptop and notebook models can be findable," Tile said in its press release.

Tile says that the tracking will be able to work even while a device is in sleep mode. The feature will work over Bluetooth, and Tile says that it can be achieved through a firmware update and BIOS configurations. That means there's no special hardware required to be bolted on to the system.

Presumably, you'll then be able to use Tile's mobile app to quickly track down your lost laptop when you're in Bluetooth range. If you're outside of Bluetooth range, Tile's tech relies on a crowdsourced network to help you pinpoint your device's location.

In any case, misplacing your laptop could become a lot less stressful by the end of 2020.

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Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl