Originally Posted by davephan (Post 1959740)

To protect stolen items, the Airtag is pretty useless, since it warns the criminals about the presence of the Airtag. The Airtag could be designed with a hole in the Airtag, like the Tile, but the Airtag doesn’t have a hole it it. The reason that the Airtag doesn’t have a hole in it, is so that Apple can sell you can expensive Airtag holder.

The more practical tracking device is a Tile, which doesn’t alert the criminals that the stolen item can be tracked. The Tile is very useful to help find misplaced items around your house, like a key ring. The Tile Pro model is the best Tile model to buy, because it’s alert sound is much louder, and the battery is replaceable.

Using the Airtag to track stolen items is useless because it alerts the criminals. Using the Tile to track stolen items is a better choice. But for high value items, like a vehicle, or important things, like a pet, a Tile tracker is a poor man’s tracking device. For high value or important things, a real GPS tracker is the best choice. But GPS trackers are more expensive, and requires a subscription to a tracking service.

It might take days or weeks for another Tile user to move nearby to the stolen item. A GPS tracker would track the stolen item in real time.

Another option for tracking is the “Loc8tor” device, which is a stand alone tracker. The “Loc8tor has a range of up to 400 feet, so you have to be within 400 feet. But you can track the item to within about one inch. The “Loc8tor” doesn’t require a subscription service, and could be a more practical method to track pets, if you can get within the 400 foot range, to start the tracking.

Originally Posted by kathyspear (Post 1959714)

It sounds like that linked article is saying that Apple will notify an iPhone that appears to be "traveling with" an air tag if the iPhone is NOT the one that the tag is paired with. It does not say it will notify any iPhone that comes near the tag. If the author of that article is correct, then an iPhone-carrying thief who is driving my (stolen) golf cart would be notified that he/she is trackable via an air tag. Maybe the author is wrong but that is not the first article I have read that describes the anti-stalking "feature" (or bug, IMO) of the air tag as such.

Apple is probably limiting the usefulness of its product in order to avoid being sued by someone who is tracked by a domestic partner. Maybe someone will develop a hack that would let me use the product in a way that is most beneficial to me (the customer who is willing to shell out money for it).

k.

Originally Posted by asianthree (Post 1959235)

So my preordered Air Tags arrived today.
The Good, I activated first one, sewing it into our cats harness. She didn’t seem to notice the extra small disk, but when I activated the sound, she couldn’t figure out what it was. I removed the harness, and took it for a drive, the tracking on my iPhone was pretty accurate showing map with homes, and where the Air tag was roughly. So if she ever got out, I have a good chance of finding her.

The cost is $29 with a battery life of about two years. However, you can activate lost alarm. If Air Tag comes anywhere near an iPhone, an alert shows up on their phone, with the information you put in system. Email or phone number. Description. We ran a test with about 20 neighbors, as I passed their location, the info came to their phone, and each texted to let us know it was working. Only way for other IPhone owns can see tag is it own activated Lost Mode. So while not really for a lost pet, it works well.

The Bad…. Downfall, while you could see I was between houses, the sound alert, is very soft, and you may not hear unless you are very close.

The Ugly, preorder took 4 months. So not something you can just pick up at the Apple store.

Added one to parents keys, which seems to go missing more than one would think. I took keys hid them couple times, and they found them within few minutes.

Will continue to post on usage and facts, but so far this beats a tile hands down.