Tile promotes their products as being able to help in case of theft, but I’m dubious. If your kayak (or whatever you’ve “Tiled”) is out of Bluetooth range from your phone, and you report it missing, then if (and this is a really huge if) someone else with the tile app on their phone is near your kayak, it will report to you the location. That’d be great in a crowded area where almost everyone is using the Tile app (their dream come true!), but in reality I’d expect these things to be pretty unreliable in finding a stolen kayak.
Also, I bought a set of tiles (fob for keys, and card for wallet) for my wife who’s always misplacing things. It only works about 50% of the time, even when we later find the missing object was in the same room. So even if someone with the tile app on their phone walks by your stolen kayak, it might not pick up your Tile’s signal.
I also think Tiles are a waste. I bought some as Christmas gifts some years ago and none of the recipients found them useful. And the batteries seem to be impossible to replace so the cost is way too much for the limited utility they provide.
$5 to $7 per month subscription is probably less than insurance would be for a higher value boat. I had done some preliminary checking on kayak or canoe theft policies and they typically start at $100 per year.
And I would certainly prefer tracking and recovering any of my boats to filing an insurance claim. Most of my favorite boats are difficult to impossible to replace, being extinct, even one of a kind, models.
Has 18 month battery life. You could hide it in a foam bulkhead or a block of foam added into the nose or tail. Pull it once a year to charge or replace battery.