Anyone use air tags?

There are 9 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 1,111 times. The latest Post (December 14, 2024 at 9:47 AM) was by UK Man.

    I do have two, one for my house keys and one for my set of car keys.
    I got a third for my husband but he doesn’t want to be tracked so he sold them.
    Apple claims that any nearby connected phone with a Bluetooth should be able to track it. However, when we went on vacation and gave my air ragged house keys to the pet sitter, all that my Find my… app was able to tell was that they were seen last in my house when we left. I wanted to used it to check if the pet sitter actually went twice a day to feed Serafina the cat.
    So I chatted with Apple and I was told that it won’t serve for that purpose because it is supposed to track your things near you, no when you are hundreds or thousands of miles away.

    We have a AirTag holder for Serafina’s collar when we go to the countryside. However, when she got lost in the woods, given that there was no phone signal and no soul in sight, it was useless to locate her.

    So, I wouldn’t buy them again but I hear a lot about people using AirTags to track their luggage or important mail but I fail to see how it works. They run on a battery that lasts about a year. In case you loses your AirTag, you should be able to have it play a sound (to find it) and to display its location using the apple’s Find my… app.

    Our security guy told us we could AirTag our TVs in the STR so that if they are removed (stolen) from the STR, we will get notified. At $30 or $40 a piece, I didn’t consider it worth the investment, also considering they can always steal your AirTag, too.

    There are cheaper alternatives by other brands but I am not sure if they have the same functions.

    When I was attending the gym, I kept getting notified about nearby AirTags and I found it so annoying. Perhaps I am missing something!

    Edited once, last by serafina: Merged a post created by serafina into this post. (November 2, 2024 at 7:48 PM).

    Quote from UK Man

    They seem to be the in thing with regular flyers who check in luggage. I know next to nowt about them.

    I have never used them. I have read reviews and news articles over the years. Though it is not a tech I bother closely following. Like other similar trackers they use Bluetooth to communicate with your phone, so for luggage tracking could be helpful to find while collecting bags at the departure. All the other trackers have the same ability. Though Apple perhaps is the only using the most modern Bluetooth BLE so has the longest range. Secondly, Airtag take advantage of all the other iphone owners in the world to rebroadcast Airtag locations, which could help of someone steals your bag. I do not believe any of the other competing trackers use this network affect like Apple does (yet). Tile was the first type of consumer Bluetooth tracker that was available a number of years before Airtag.

    Are you asking only for a need to track luggage, or just curious for other general use? A standalone GPS tracker with its own cellular card, like a mini cell phone would be the best to track luggage. I do not believe they are allowed for use in aviation industry (yet)

    Quote from aficionado

    Are you asking only for a need to track luggage, or just curious for other general use?

    Curiosity really. I see them being mentioned a lot on other travel forums and soon came to the conclusion they're more of a fashion than a need. I've had the odd piece of checked in luggage go astray but it's always turned up sooner or later.

    UK Man , when I picked up my husband, once we were home I got a notification on my iPhone that an AirTag had been following me for a while. I could even see on the map that it started in Ezeiza and went all the way to our address.

    I thought it was something else (his earphones? another AirTag of mine that unpaired accidentally?), but after the second "alert" I asked to him what the heck he had on him. It turned out that my mother had given him her AirTag since she was not using it.

    (this is a “personal safety” feature showing where someone who YOU don’t know; potentially observed your travel with THEIR AirTag surreptitiously placed on YOUR person.)

    He found it convenient during his trip because he had to leave his luggage at a barber shop in Liverpool during the day. He left the AirTag in the bag and he was able to check during the day that his luggage was still where he had left it.

    Unfortunately, he didn't check his AirTag while his luggage was in Heathrwo for two days, nor during his arrival at Ezeiza the other day.

    He was there only for a day and he is a big Beatles fan, which is why he went back to Liverpool. He said it was quite modern and lively, better than what he saw on YouTube/videos online.