We have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Apple AirTags for several months now, and it is rumored that they will be available soon But Apple is not the only company interested in selling tracking gadgets

According to TechCrunch, which uncovered the concept art for Tile, the company is planning to expand its current lineup of Bluetooth trackers with trackers that use the same ultra-wideband (UWB) technology as AirTags and Samsung's upcoming Galaxy SmartTag tracker The company plans to expand it

Tile is no stranger to the world of lost property tracking, as the company sells a wide range of Bluetooth trackers and has an extensive user community for locating lost property However, UWB has a number of advantages over regular Bluetooth, including the ability to transmit spatial and directional data

This is a very useful feature if you are developing a device that is designed to be tracked And Tile seems to be adapting to the new technology so as not to be made obsolete by competitors entering the market

The internal concept art does not suggest any major design changes, as the new UWB trackers look almost identical to the Tile Mate and Tile Pro That design has been in use for several years and is clearly small and unobtrusive enough to not get in the way until needed Also, unlike the AirTag design we have seen, it has a built-in hole for attaching to a key

But as an added bonus, Tile is also working on augmented reality features for its app This includes directional arrows that point to the correct location and overlays that detail where the lost item is located

The new UWB-based tracker will be available later this year at an undetermined price, but Tile's Bluetooth tracker series will remain available At this time, many cell phones do not support UWB, and it would not make sense to effectively block those seeking older and (presumably) cheaper ones