Dell's New Tile Partnership Means You'll Never Lose Your Stylus

After bringing its object-tracking expertise to laptops and wearables, Tile is extending a helping hand to the humble stylus, too. Dell has announced the Premier Rechargeable Active Pen (PN7522W), a stylus that comes equipped with Tile's tracking tech. In case users misplace the pricey Dell stylus, they can open the Tile app installed on their phone to make the stylus ring and light up, helping them locate the active pen with audiovisual cues. However, that only works if the stylus is somewhere nearby. In case the pen was left at a faraway place like a coffee shop or dropped in a cab, users can rely on Tile's network to see the last known location of Dell's stylus, just like any other Tile-enabled hardware.

Dell says its $110 stylus is the world's first active pen with Tile location tracking. The stylus is tailor-made for Dell's 2-in-1 range and features an array of notification lights at the top, arranged in a beautiful hexagon pattern. The tilt-sensitive stylus can recognize 4,096 levels of pressure and has a trio of customizable buttons. The two side buttons can be programmed for a wide range of tasks such as replicating mouse buttons, launching Windows search or OneNote, controlling music playback, and switching apps among others.

The company is also making some big claims about the battery life figures. The device is claimed to offer the world's longest battery life for an active pen. The official product page mentions a battery life of 40 days on a single charge, while 20 minutes of charging time will be enough to juice up 80% of the battery. And even though it attaches magnetically to the side of compatible Dell laptops, no power transfer happens. To juice up the stylus' 45mAh battery, there's a USB-C port near the top.

However, this isn't Tile's first entry in the computing segment, and neither is it going to be the last one. Lenovo already has ThinkPad series machines in the market that come with built-in Tile tracking functionality. Skullcandy also offers a selection of headphones and even true wireless earbuds with Tile integration. Fitbit's Inspire 2 fitness band also supports Tile's location-finding wizardry. In the coming weeks, Tile's tech will also make its way to MSI and Fujitsu's new laptops powered by Intel's 12th gen processors.