They sound similar and work completely differently.
Tile, AirTag, and other Bluetooth tags have no live connection of their own. They ping off strangers’ phones: when someone running the right app passes within roughly 30–100 feet, the tag reports that spot. In a dense city that can work surprisingly well. On a highway, inside a garage, or in a rural area — silence. Two more honest problems for theft: the dot you see is where your vehicle was when a phone happened by, not where it is now; and anti-stalking features can pop a “tracker is moving with you” alert on the thief’s own phone, telling them to search the bike and toss the tag.
GPS trackers carry a cellular connection, like a phone. They report live location anywhere with cell coverage, send movement alerts on their own, and depend on nobody walking past. The tradeoffs: higher price up front, and most brands charge a monthly subscription for the cellular service — though pay-once, no-subscription models now exist.
Bottom line for a vehicle: Bluetooth tags are great for keys and fine as a cheap backup layer. For something that moves at 70 mph and gets loaded into vans, live GPS is the tool the job actually calls for.
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