Airtags

notahappycamper

Just wondering if anyone has Airtags and has noticed that it takes a bit of time from when an Airtag is connected with a distance before the direction arrow appears i.e. it will say the item is X distance away but all that is showing is the circle with the dots and distance but no arrow?

kaerobe

notahappycamper wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone has Airtags and has noticed that it takes a bit of time from when an Airtag is connected with a distance before the direction arrow appears i.e. it will say the item is X distance away but all that is showing is the circle with the dots and distance but no arrow?

part of the design. has to calibrate and get its bearings.

5uspect

It tells you to move around for that very reason.

Gumbo

Just in case anyone is looking to buy, Vodafone have them for €35. Great you say, but when you use the discount code VFFANTASTIC you get them for €28 or €99 for a pack of 4. The discount code can be used on all their other products including Apple items.

https://accessories-22.myshopify.com/collections/accessories/products/apple-airtag-1-pack-white

*copied from BA.

arch_stanton

Gumbo wrote: »

Just in case anyone is looking to buy, Vodafone have them for €35. Great you say, but when you use the discount code VFFANTASTIC you get them for €28 or €99 for a pack of 4. The discount code can be used on all their other products including Apple items.

https://accessories-22.myshopify.com/collections/accessories/products/apple-airtag-1-pack-white

*copied from BA.

I ordered them over the weekend and they arrived by An Post this morning.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a third party tag holder? The apple versions are expensive but some of the cheap chinese versions don't seem to hold the tag in place very well.

Doodah7

arch_stanton wrote: »

I ordered them over the weekend and they arrived by An Post this morning.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a third party tag holder? The apple versions are expensive but some of the cheap chinese versions don't seem to hold the tag in place very well.

Mine arrived also. Great service from Vodafone.

I've ordered one of these. Cheap enough although shipping doubles the price. I like that it will protect the shiny side of the Airtag.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08ZS9J5GN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

keith_d99

arch_stanton wrote: »

I ordered them over the weekend and they arrived by An Post this morning.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a third party tag holder? The apple versions are expensive but some of the cheap chinese versions don't seem to hold the tag in place very well.

Should have moved sooner ... checked on Sunday and the 4 pack was sold out!

Gregor Samsa

Ordered mine from Vodafone on Friday, should have them tomorrow (west coast).

Does anyone have any recommendations for key rings for them? I'm not buying the €39 Apple ones. The €13.95 Belkin ones look ideal, but they're out of stock everywhere. Most of the ones on Amazon (which I assume are the same as the ones on Wish, etc) seem to get mixed reviews at best, with people saying the AirTags are liable to pop out of them.

Gumbo

arch_stanton wrote: »

I ordered them over the weekend and they arrived by An Post this morning.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a third party tag holder? The apple versions are expensive but some of the cheap chinese versions don't seem to hold the tag in place very well.

I got this delivered today

QITAYO Protective Case for... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B093GT51MF?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Gregor Samsa

Gumbo wrote: »

I got this delivered today

QITAYO Protective Case for... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B093GT51MF?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Any unwanted poppage?

ozmo

sooo. now what..

Just got my Airtag today - I dont have a latest 10 or 11 IPhone - so knew it would be more limited... but it seems... useless? or am I missing something?

So it showing its "with me" when its close - if I leave it very far away, out of range - its... well its out of range - that's that.

it doesn't show the location of the airtag - just the location of my phone. No indication of how far away the tag is from the phone - anywhere within a radius of several houses.

I had hoped to use it as a pet or car or bike tracker... or even keys tracker - but don't see how that's possible.



I have a invoxia tracker - that IPhone app allows me to see how far its away when its within Bluetooth range with an accuracy of half a meter or so - had hoped to replace it with this smaller airtag.

not impressed.

5uspect

It relies on the global network of about a billion iPhones. If you put it further away from you and there are no other iPhones near you then it does nothing. If you have on one on a pet or a bike or a bag etc and that AirTag is moving around town then it’ll pass by other iPhones (including those with a U1 chip) and they will log it’s location. Then you can see that current location in Find My.

It needs to come into proximity of other iPhones. That depends on how many people in an area have one and how frequently they may pass by.

ablelocks

5uspect wrote: »

It relies on the global network of about a billion iPhones. If you put it further away from you and there are no other iPhones near you then it does nothing. If you have on one on a pet or a bike or a bag etc and that AirTag is moving around town then it’ll pass by other iPhones (including those with a U1 chip) and they will log it’s location. Then you can see that current location in Find My.

It needs to come into proximity of other iPhones. That depends on how many people in an area have one and how frequently they may pass by.

had been all set to get one for dog, but in a rural area you could be waiting a while for it to pass someone with an iphone.

murpho999

ozmo wrote: »

sooo. now what..

Just got my Airtag today - I dont have a latest 10 or 11 IPhone - so knew it would be more limited... but it seems... useless? or am I missing something?

So it showing its "with me" when its close - if I leave it very far away, out of range - its... well its out of range - that's that.

it doesn't show the location of the airtag - just the location of my phone. No indication of how far away the tag is from the phone - anywhere within a radius of several houses.

I had hoped to use it as a pet or car or bike tracker... or even keys tracker - but don't see how that's possible.



I have a invoxia tracker - that IPhone app allows me to see how far its away when its within Bluetooth range with an accuracy of half a meter or so - had hoped to replace it with this smaller airtag.

not impressed.

It clearly states on the Apple Website that it's only compatible with the iPhone 11 up so I really don't get your complaints or stating that you're not impressed.

Gregor Samsa

Got my discounted pack of 4 from Vodafone today. I don't have holders for them yet, so can't attach them to the sets of keys they'll be used with, but I tried one out in the house.

I thew it randomly into my bedroom, closed the door and went downstairs to start finding it with my iPhone 12 Pro. Tried playing the sound first - it was very barely audible from downstairs with no-one else in the house and everything quiet. But I could tell it was in the house and follow the sound with a bit of effort. It only plays the sound 3 times with each request, so you'd have to keep pressing the button on the phone to follow it.

Then I tried the precision finding. Obviously it can't tell whether the tag is upstairs or not, so you could be walking around downstairs following the arrow. But when you're directly underneath it, it tells you the tag is 2.5 metres away, which represents the height it is upstairs, so once you understand that, you'd be able to find things in your house upstairs and downstairs. Walking up the stairs, the display of the arrow on the phone swiveled around like a compass needle, directing me towards the tag. At one point on the stairs, it lost the signal. I'd say this was when the fairly solid bed, a solid wall and a book case were all in the path of the signal. But a couple of steps up, it picked up the signal again. It led me directly to the tag, and tells you it's "Here" when at it.

Tired hiding the tag in things then. Put it in a winter coat pocket out in the hallway, with another coat on top of it. Went into the dining room at the back of the house. I could hear the alert sound thought two closed doors from about 15m away. Precision finding worked fine.

Hid it under a memory foam pillow in one of the bedrooms then. In the room, the alert sound was very faint and muffled, but could be heard. From outside the closed bedroom door, it was barely audible. From 5 steps away from the door on the landing, I couldn't hear it at all. Precision finding worked fine.

I haven't tried it out and about yet. I guess the success of that depends on how many iPhones are about.

Messing about with it here on my desk, it takes a few seconds to make a connection. You wouldn't really notice this if you were looking for a lost item, but it's apparent when the tag is literally sitting 4cm from the phone, and it's saying there's a poor connection for a second or so. At one point I tried to find the AirTag with my phone flat on the desk, and a message came up saying "More light needed", as if the camera has some part in the process. Not sure what that's about, and I wasn't able to reproduce it. It seems to be able to measure the distance to the AirTag to a resolution of 10cm when it's very close.

My main gripe is that they don't work with Family Sharing. For the way we use (and lose) our two sets of car keys, it would be very handy for both myself and my wife to be able to track both sets. It would be a waste to put two AirTags on each set, so for the moment I'll just assign the tags to my account. In Find My, the AirTags are listed under a specific "Items" tab, rather than the Devices tab where iPhones, Watches, iPads, Macs and AiPods are. Family sharing works with the Devices, but not Items. It's a weird distinction, but maybe there's some logic to it I can't see. I really hope the option to share among a Family is applied at some point.

shanec1928

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

I haven't tried it out and about yet. I guess the success of that depends on how many iPhones are about.

that bit seems to work quite well, have one on my car keys that have been in the garage for the last few days and can see it updating regularly enough the tag is aprox 10km from my location.

notahappycamper

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Got my discounted pack of 4 from Vodafone today. I don't have holders for them yet, so can't attach them to the sets of keys they'll be used with, but I tried one out in the house.

I thew it randomly into my bedroom, closed the door and went downstairs to start finding it with my iPhone 12 Pro. Tried playing the sound first - it was very barely audible from downstairs with no-one else in the house and everything quiet. But I could tell it was in the house and follow the sound with a bit of effort. It only plays the sound 3 times with each request, so you'd have to keep pressing the button on the phone to follow it.

Then I tried the precision finding. Obviously it can't tell whether the tag is upstairs or not, so you could be walking around downstairs following the arrow. But when you're directly underneath it, it tells you the tag is 2.5 metres away, which represents the height it is upstairs, so once you understand that, you'd be able to find things in your house upstairs and downstairs. Walking up the stairs, the display of the arrow on the phone swiveled around like a compass needle, directing me towards the tag. At one point on the stairs, it lost the signal. I'd say this was when the fairly solid bed, a solid wall and a book case were all in the path of the signal. But a couple of steps up, it picked up the signal again. It led me directly to the tag, and tells you it's "Here" when at it.

Tired hiding the tag in things then. Put it in a winter coat pocket out in the hallway, with another coat on top of it. Went into the dining room at the back of the house. I could hear the alert sound thought two closed doors from about 15m away. Precision finding worked fine.

Hid it under a memory foam pillow in one of the bedrooms then. In the room, the alert sound was very faint and muffled, but could be heard. From outside the closed bedroom door, it was barely audible. From 5 steps away from the door on the landing, I couldn't hear it at all. Precision finding worked fine.

I haven't tried it out and about yet. I guess the success of that depends on how many iPhones are about.

Messing about with it here on my desk, it takes a few seconds to make a connection. You wouldn't really notice this if you were looking for a lost item, but it's apparent when the tag is literally sitting 4cm from the phone, and it's saying there's a poor connection for a second or so. At one point I tried to find the AirTag with my phone flat on the desk, and a message came up saying "More light needed", as if the camera has some part in the process. Not sure what that's about, and I wasn't able to reproduce it. It seems to be able to measure the distance to the AirTag to a resolution of 10cm when it's very close.

My main gripe is that they don't work with Family Sharing. For the way we use (and lose) our two sets of car keys, it would be very handy for both myself and my wife to be able to track both sets. It would be a waste to put two AirTags on each set, so for the moment I'll just assign the tags to my account. In Find My, the AirTags are listed under a specific "Items" tab, rather than the Devices tab where iPhones, Watches, iPads, Macs and AiPods are. Family sharing works with the Devices, but not Items. It's a weird distinction, but maybe there's some logic to it I can't see. I really hope the option to share among a Family is applied at some point.

Just in relation to using them in a house. I have got a message saying the Airtag may be on a different level to you which is interesting.

Gregor Samsa

notahappycamper wrote: »

Just in relation to using them in a house. I have got a message saying the Airtag may be on a different level to you which is interesting.

Ok,I was thinking that they should potentially be able to do that, especially if the phone detected that the AirTag was a few metres away, but wasn’t able to determine the direction (or it was detecting opposite directions within a very small area). I’ll check it out again later.

notahappycamper

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Ok,I was thinking that they should potentially be able to do that, especially if the phone detected that the AirTag was a few metres away, but wasn’t able to determine the direction (or it was detecting opposite directions within a very small area). I’ll check it out again later.

It does involve moving around i.e. if you are on the couch and open the find my app and it is connected to the Airtag it will give the distance but no arrow showing the direction. So, once you start moving it’ll give the arrow and possibly the message saying the tag is on a different level.

s8n

great share OP

notahappycamper

To add I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max. which has the Ultra Wide Band chip which helps with the direction. Not sure if previous iPhone models get the same arrow etc..

soc

We used the 4 airtags to hide our now 8yo birthday presents around the house over the weekend as a modern day treasure hunt. ;-)
She was delighted to go hunting for the presents with the phone and was well able to locate all presents using the direction arrow only (no noise alert) with no difficulty. As she found the presents, I selected the next airtag for her to locate. We were using an IPhone 11 pro

ozmo

Has anyone noticed an increase in battery use since registering a tag.

Can you check app battery consumption in the settings? It used to be under 5%.
Yesterday “Find my” (background task) used 10 % of my battery for the day.
I disabled Bluetooth last night and made sure “find my” app was not running - and Today its used 30%of the battery….

I have not opened the Find My app.

Gregor Samsa

I’ve one AirTag registered. FindMy has used 1% of battery over the past 24 hours (haven’t opened the app), and 4% over the past 10 days (would have had FindMy open and finding the tag a bit when I got it last Friday).

5uspect

Find My has used 2% over the last 10 days on my iPhone 11, however my iPad has seen 4% used in the same time.

Doodah7

Find My has used 6% is the last ten days on my iPhone 12.

ozmo

5uspect wrote: »

Find My has used 2% over the last 10 days on my iPhone 11, however my iPad has seen 4% used in the same time.

Thanks - I rebooted my phone last night - right now it's showing the
"Find My (Background Activity)" has used

25% of my battery in the last 24 hours. or
14% in the last 10 days...

That's a lot...
Bluetooth is Off and I have not launched the app at all in a few days.

Gregor Samsa

One thing I'll note is that the registered AirTag hasn't actually moved since Friday last, as I don't have a holder for it yet to put it on my keys, so it's just sitting in its box on my desk. I don't know if FindMy uses more juice if the AirTag is moving around like normal.

iniall

Got my 20% off AirTag this morning. Thanks OP! Anyone having a good experience with a keychain?

Gregor Samsa

Any keytags I've tried to buy from Amazon (even the ones that show as in stock and fulfilled by Amazon) haven't actually been shipped, and the order has just languished. Which is strange - I've never had this happen to Amazon orders before. I placed this order 3 days ago, and had the exact same thing happen to another holder last week. I cancelled that order after 9 days of no change. I guess they're not actually in stock at all.




I'm waiting on the Belkin ones to come back into stock. €13.95, which is much more reasonable than the leather ones, and the seem more secure than the cheaper silicone ones.

ozmo

iniall wrote: »

Got my 20% off AirTag this morning. Thanks OP! Anyone having a good experience with a keychain?

35% of my iPhone 8 battery battery today used by "Find My background task" that's after a reboot and Bluetooth disabled... only since I registered my tag...


I hear some people have successfully drilled a hole in the tag near the top for a keyring.


Trust Apple to get you to pay extra for the keyring hole...

Who needs headphone jacks in phones, standard usb ports in laptops, ethernet ports in desktops or keyring holes in key finders... so yesterday

Itssoeasy

soc wrote: »

We used the 4 airtags to hide our now 8yo birthday presents around the house over the weekend as a modern day treasure hunt. ;-)
She was delighted to go hunting for the presents with the phone and was well able to locate all presents using the direction arrow only (no noise alert) with no difficulty. As she found the presents, I selected the next airtag for her to locate. We were using an IPhone 11 pro

That sounds great. A use of modern technology to do an old school activity.

Gregor Samsa

After trying to buy three different types of AirTag keyrings from Amazon, but each time the order didn't go anywhere despite the product being "in stock" at the time (see post above), I managed to place an order for these on Saturday, and they arrived today:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B093BTWNTQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They seem to hold the AirTag fairly securely; I don't think there's much chance of it accidently popping out. Not sure how robust the silicone will be up at the keyring part long term, but we'll see. If a tear starts at all in silicone, it tends to get worse. At least the AirTags are operational now.

ozmo

I might try the flatten option if I get a second one.

Drill hole:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT6mwE6YMDw


Make it half the height to fit flat in a wallet :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rHyAAkf5tE

5uspect

ozmo wrote: »

35% of my iPhone 8 battery battery today used by "Find My background task" that's after a reboot and Bluetooth disabled... only since I registered my tag...


I hear some people have successfully drilled a hole in the tag near the top for a keyring.


Trust Apple to get you to pay extra for the keyring hole...

Who needs headphone jacks in phones, standard usb ports in laptops, ethernet ports in desktops or keyring holes in key finders... so yesterday

I haven’t used my iPad much this week and Find My background activity is now chewing up battery when the iPad is idle. 15% over the last 10 days and up to 100% over night. My battery dropped about 12% while unused over the last 24 hours with Find My responsible for 88% of that.

ozmo

5uspect wrote: »

I haven’t used my iPad much this week and Find My background activity is now chewing up battery when the iPad is idle. 15% over the last 10 days and up to 100% over night. My battery dropped about 12% while unused over the last 24 hours with Find My responsible for 88% of that.

My phone is down to 34% - and its not 6pm.
20% was used by the “Find My” task. Cannot get a day on a battery anymore.
Im going try disable my participation in the find network - see if that will help.

ozmo

ozmo wrote: »

My phone is down to 34% - and its not 6pm.
20% was used by the “Find My” task. Cannot get a day on a battery anymore.
Im going try disable my participation in the find network - see if that will help.

IPhone 8 - Updated phone to 14.6 - disabled bluetooth - disabled participation in Find My Network
- tried tag is beside phone - tried tag is far from phone(another house) - nothing helps.... loosing between 5% and 15% of total battery a day for air tag (background task - without going into app)

Removed "Air Tag" from my list of things to track - and battery life back to normal

Is this another ploy to force an upgrade to latest phone...:( it just might work.

notahappycamper

ozmo wrote: »

IPhone 8 - Updated phone to 14.6 - disabled bluetooth - disabled participation in Find My Network
- tried tag is beside phone - tried tag is far from phone(another house) - nothing helps.... loosing between 5% and 15% of total battery a day for air tag (background task - without going into app)

Removed "Air Tag" from my list of things to track - and battery life back to normal

Is this another ploy to force an upgrade to latest phone...:( it just might work.

Very strange. I’ve 3 Airtags and an iPhone 12 Pro Max. and the battery usage (for the “Find my” app) over the past 10 days is only 3% and 2% in the past 24 hours. I’m on iOS 14.6 and the Airtags are on firmware 1.0.276

Gregor Samsa

Just an update on those silicone tag holders I got from Amazon (above).

They are fine, but I've been finding them a bit bulky and long - it dangles down hitting my knee when the keys are in the ignition of one of our cars. The other day I had my keys in my pocket and when I took them out, the AirTag was still in the holder, but the battery cover was off (loose in my pocket), but there was no sign of the battery.

So I decided to get the Belkin ones from Apple. Much more robust and also neater. It's solid plastic, and the AirTag locks into it, so there's no way it can escape or come apart. You can get it with a keyring or lanyard, but the cases themselves are identical, so if you have your own keyrings, the lanyard version gives you a bit more versatility now or in the future. We've to on sets of keys, one tracking a handbag and one in my camera bag.




I actually had to use Find My to find the keys to take this photo as my wife had left them somewhere unorthodox (again).