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Credit: Illustration by Ian Moore and product image courtesy of Amazon.
These days, you don’t need to be a spy to have tracking devices. If you’re an Apple user, AirTags uses Find My to track anything that you can put this device on. Right now, Amazon has a single AirTag on sale for $19 (originally $29) and the four-pack for $69.99 (originally $99), both at a new record-low price according to price-checking tools.
AirTags are useful gadgets, and their usefulness extends to your creativity. They are mostly marketed for purses, keys, and travel bags, but there are examples of people using them much more creatively (someone on this Reddit post used it on their dog collar and trained it to come back whenever they pressed the “play sound” feature). How it works is with Apple’s network of iOS devices to create a Bluetooth tracker. Essentially, every person with an iPhone (or iPad) is part of this iOS network, and as long as one of these people is within Bluetooth range of your AirTag, it will show up on your Find My app.
As you can see on PCMag’s “excellent” review of the AirTag, the Find My app has a screen that points you in the direction of your AirTag like a compass, including the distance away it is from you. There is also an option to play a sound, which is perfect for, say, finding a remote that’s buried under the couch.
Once you are more than 30 feet from your phone, the network of iOS users will kick in. When the AirTag is between that range, it uses your own Bluetooth. There are security measures in place set by Apple, including end-to-end encryption so nobody (not even Apple), knows where your AirTag is except for you. The batteries last about a year and are replaceable. There is also no monthly charge for these, unlike competitors like Tile for Android users.
