Your phone.
Still yours.
When someone fails to unlock your stolen phone, Tambo photographs them, records where the phone is, and sends both to your email and your WhatsApp. The report reaches you even though the phone does not.
What actually happens when a phone is taken
Tambo cannot tell when a phone is stolen. What it can see is the unlock attempt that follows, and that is where it goes to work.
The phone is taken
Nothing changes on screen and nothing is sent yet. Tambo carries on as normal, waiting for someone to pick the phone up and try it.
Someone tries to unlock it
On the third failed attempt, which is a threshold you set yourself, Tambo takes one still photograph with the front camera. The screen gives nothing away.
The report goes out
The photograph, the location and how accurate it is, the time, the number of failed attempts and the IMEI. All of it goes to your email, your WhatsApp and your trusted contact.
And keeps going out
Every position the phone manages to get is added to a trail. Readings taken while it is offline wait on the device and send as soon as it finds a connection.
If they try to wipe it
A reset attempt sets off one last report, carrying the final known location, before Tambo can be removed.
What you get
Intruder photograph
One still image from the front camera, taken after the number of failed unlock attempts you set. Every photograph is stamped with the device, the date and the time, so it stands up as evidence.
Location trail
Not just the last dot on a map. You get the whole route, with the accuracy radius and the source of every fix, so you know how much to trust each one.
Reports off the phone
Reports go to your email, to your WhatsApp, and to a trusted contact who still has a phone when you do not. Losing the handset should not mean losing the trail.
SIM change alert
If someone swaps the SIM, you are told. Where the phone can read the new number, that goes to you as well.
Hard to remove
Device administrator permission means Tambo cannot be uninstalled without your PIN, and a reset attempt sends a final location before it goes.
Silent by default
No icon change, no alarm, no warning. An anti-theft app that announces itself is one that gets uninstalled in the first minute.
What Tambo cannot do
Better that you know this before you install it. There are things Tambo cannot do, and an anti-theft app that oversells helps nobody on the day it is needed.
Tambo does not recover phones
What it produces is evidence: a photograph, a place, a time and an IMEI. Recovery is police work. Never go to a reported location yourself.
Tambo cannot report what the phone cannot obtain
A phone that is switched off, out of battery, or without signal and GPS cannot report where it is. The last position it did manage to get is already with you.
No app survives every factory reset
Tambo makes removal difficult and sends a final location when a reset starts. Your IMEI matters as much as the app does, because that is the number your network can blacklist.
Built to collect as little as it can
Tambo needs your location and one camera image to do its job. It needs nothing else, so it takes nothing else.
What we collect
Your location, so a stolen phone can say where it is. One front-camera photograph, taken only after a failed unlock attempt. Your name, email address and phone number, because that is where the reports go. Your device details, and the IMEI you type in yourself.
What we never touch
Your messages, calls, contacts or browsing. The photos already on your phone. Audio or video. We run no advertising SDKs, we sell nothing to anyone, and we share nothing with data brokers.
Three minutes to set up. Then it goes quiet.
Install, enter your details, confirm your device, choose who gets the reports. Then Tambo stays quiet until the day you need it.