Lost at Airport: Key Locator and Community Found Keys in 15 Seconds

Lost luggage at an airport is a horrible thing we hope you will never have to experience. However, losing your keys while traveling can also be very painful. However, with Tile, we can help you get your lost keys back in seconds.

I'm at San Francisco Airport, in the line for United TSA screening. It's Tuesday mid-afternoon and I'm rushing through the line. With TSA pre-screen, there's no need to take off shoes or belt, but at the last second, I realize I've got my keys still in my pocket, so I rush back and put them in a plate to go through the x-ray machine. On the other side of security, there's a bit of a commotion with a lady in front of me, and it's a minute or so before I can approach my bags. I finally grab my two bags, and I'm off to Portland.

Fast forward to Thursday night. It's 10:30pm when I land and, you guessed it, there's no keys in my briefcase, pockets or suitcase. Now I filter slowly back through my memories to the last time I saw them and realize that they were probably grabbed by TSA when they weren't claimed. So I approach a TSA supervisor and he indicates that the lost and found is at a different location and won't be open until 9:00am the next day. So I can't get them, and I really don't know where they are. So I take a bus home. On the way home on the bus, my wife reminds me that my keys had a TILE on them that she'd given me for my birthday a few months ago. I then open the application on my iPhone, and at first it's just telling me the keys are out of range of my blue-tooth on the phone. So I hit the LOST button on the iPhone screen and the application sends out a request to see if any other TILE users have passed close to my lost keys during the past day or so.

Within 15 or 20 seconds, a map pops up showing that 11 hours earlier, my keys were in the international building at San Francisco Airport.

I can see the map, and zoom in, and see that my car keys are - in fact - near a Starbucks at the International building at San Francisco Airport. Now I'm feeling much better because they are clearly at the airport!! I get home late, sleep a bit, and take a return bus back to the airport – my car is still at Park-n-Fly, but at least I've now got backup keys if I don't find my original keys at the Lost and Found. I don't know where the TSA lost and found is, but using my Life360 application on my phone I track myself to the Starbucks on the map, get a coffee, and notice that I'm very close to the key symbol on the map display, so I just walk toward the key representation on the map. In about 150 feet, my GPS location is sitting on the car key symbol and I'm standing in front of a Traveler's Aid store. I inquire about whether they are also the TSA lost and found and they confirm indeed they are. I show the girl behind the counter that my keys are here. Within minutes she brings out my keys, and I hit the Found button on the application, and head to Park-n-Fly to retrieve my car.

The TILE paid for itself in one use! It was great. It really worked well!!

Satisfied,

Steve K.
Novato, CA.