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Chipolo Card Point Review
A highly intuitive if limited wallet tracker for Android users
In This Article
Verdict
The Chipolo Card Point is a highly discrete and intuitive way to for Android users to track their wallet. At launch, however, it’s more useful for finding it in your local vicinity than it is over longer distances. Once Google sorts its Find My Device network out, it’ll be even more useful.
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
It’s all very well having a Bluetooth tracker you can attach to your keys or to a lanyard on your bag, but what about your equally precious wallet or passport? The Chipolo Card Point provides a neatly unassuming solution, and it works exclusively with Google’s new Find My Device network.
That latter point is what differentiates the Chipolo Card Point from theChipolo CardandChipolo Card Spot, which work with the standalone Chipolo app and Apple’sFind Mynetwork respectively. We rated those other iterations pretty highly, so hopes are high for this distinctly Android-flavoured variant.
The Card Point forms part of a one-two Google-punch with the Chipolo One Point, which is the brand’s own key tracker built for the Find My Device network. Between them, they promise an intuitive and affordable Bluetooth tracking experience for Android users
On the latter point, the Chipolo Card Point costs £35 per tracker, and you can also purchase them in bundles of two or four. Is it something you’ll want to open your wallet for?
Design
As the name suggests, the Chipolo Card Point’s unique selling, er, point is its credit card-aping form factor. The footprint is an exact match for the various cards in your wallet, and while it’s quite a bit thicker at 2.4mm, it’s still skinny enough to slip into a spare wallet flap or document pouch.
Like the Chipolo One Point, it’s IPX5 rated. This means that it’s splashproof rather than full-on waterproof, but that’s less of an issue here where the tracker is always likely to be tucked away and quite probably surrounded by water-repelling plastic.
Also like the One Point, it’s only available in a fairly drab white colour, though that’s also a trait it shares with the plain Chipolo Card. Again, given that this tracker is designed to be tucked away and forgotten about, that’s not such an issue.
Unfortunately, unlike the Chipolo One Point, there’s no replaceable battery provision here. It comes down to the tracker’s uniquely flat dimensions, which doubtless required a more bespoke power solution.
It’s not all bad news, since the Card Point’s battery lasts twice as long as the One Point’s at a full two years. Also, Chipolo runs a discounted Recycle and Renew program that means you can return your Card Point before it completely runs out of battery and have it replaced for half the retail price. It’s not perfect, but given that this doesn’t use an off-the-shelf battery like the One Point, it’s probably as a good a solution as could be managed for a reasonable price.
Features
The whole point of the Chipolo Card Point is that it works natively with Android without any fiddly set-up procedure. Sure enough, it proved easy peasy to get up and running.
Just press the built-in button (designated by a tactile dot on the corner) near a compatibleAndroid phone, and a pop-up should appear to get you connected. It’s just a few brief steps to attach the tracker to your Google account.
Going back to the issue of smartphone compatibility, not every Android phone is fully up and running with theGoogle Find My Deviceapp at the time of writing. I was able to switch between aMotorola Edge 50 Ultra,Pixel 8, and Sony Xperia 1 VI without issue, but neither of Chipolo’s trackers appeared in the app on the OnePlus Nord CE 4 Lite 5G. It’s early days, though, and universal support should be coming.
When it comes to tracking the Chipolo, tapping the tracker’s image in the Google Find My Devices app brings up a map page that should show you its last known location. The map reading proved accurate when the tracker was close to hand or in a public area, but I found that it showed up blank annoyingly often, such as when the Card One was taken to a neighbouring town.
This is almost certainly down to teething troubles for the Google Find My Device network rather than an issue with the tracker itself. To summarise, Google’s Find My Devices network can use other people’s Android devices to securely and anonymously locate your own, including compatible trackers.
However, the setting that’s necessary to ensure universal tracking regardless of the network environment is currently an option buried in the Find My Device app menu rather than the default. Google really needs to change this if its tracking network is to be as useful as Apple’s (and potentially, given the higher number of Android devices out there, even more so).
When it comes to local tracking, however, the Chipolo Card Point performs better. Tapping ‘Find nearby’ in the Google Find My Devices app presents a stylish little hotter/colder gauge to help guide you closer to your lost wallet. It’s not as specific as Apple’s AirTag thanks to the lack of ultra-wideband (UWB), which is a bit of a shame.
Still, if you tap the ‘Play sound’ option in the app when within 60 metres of the tracker, it’ll emit a shrill ringtone. At 105dB, it isn’t quite as loud as the Chipolo One Point (which gets to 120dB), and you could arguably do with it being even louder given where it’s going to be stored. Even so, it should prove loud enough to guide you over those last few feet.
The Chipolo Card Point lacks the Chipolo Card and Chipolo Card Spot’s ability to reverse-track your phone, which is a bit of a shame, and you won’t get any notifications if your wallet suddenly starts moving away from you (or vice versa).
On the plus side, it’s very easy to share access to the tracker’s location with one person – a potentially helpful feature for when your partner is frantically looking for your passport at home while you’re having a full-blown meltdown at the airport. It happens.
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Should you buy it?
You’re an Android user who’s always losing their wallet
The Chipolo Card Point works exclusively and seamlessly with Android, and slips discretely into any wallet or folder.
You want a Bluetooth tracker with reliable long range tracking ability
Google’s Find My Device Network will be a powerful long-range tracking tool some day, but it’s not there yet.
Final Thoughts
The Chipolo Card Point is a well-built credit card-shaped Bluetooth tracker that slips neatly into a wallet or document pouch. It lacks UWB for precise location tracking, but a solid ringtone feature and Google’s proximity tool help out in that regard.
Where it really falls down at the time of writing is in the flawed implementation of Google’s young Find My Device network, which inhibits the ability to track the Card Point over longer ranges.
The company’s battery replacement solution is also a lot more convoluted than with theChipolo Onerange, though it does have extended stamina by way of mitigation.
All in all, the Chipolo Card Point is solid way for Android users to keep track of their precious wallet, and it’ll almost certainly get a lot better as Google’s core tracking service improves. From the outset, however, it’s not quite the total package.
How we test
We make sure to spend at least a week with each tracker, testing all of the advertised features. We’ll also test the range of the product, and how easy it is to set up.
We test the maximum range of each tracker
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FAQs
Unfortunately not – once the Card Point runs flat, it’s effectively e-waste. However, Chipolo will recycle it for you and offer you 50% towards a replacement, which does make it somewhat more acceptable.
Jon is a seasoned freelance writer who started covering games and apps in 2007 before expanding into smartphones and consumer tech, dabbling in lifestyle and media coverage along the way. Besides bein…
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Why trust our journalism?
Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
