Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

AirTag Removable Battery Sparks Child Safety Concerns

Dented said:
Completely flawed logic since by their very nature Airtags bought by other people are likely to turn up all over the place.
Click to expand...
There is a much higher risk of your child getting hold of your AirTags at home than someone else's. I personally wouldn't be all that worried about that as I feel the risk would be exceptionally low. I don't particularly worry about other similar devices that have the same flaw that belong to other people as my childrens' window of opportunity to do serious self harm is very limited.

My primary concern would be me or my wife bringing them into our house where they would live most of the time and having a battery compartment that reports suggest vary from kind of fiddly to trivial to open depending on who you talk to.
 
  • Like
Reactions: orbital~debris
Man, some people would complain if you hung them with a brand new rope.

How many things out there have replaceable coin-type batteries, some smaller than the CR2032? Most of those devices are fairly easy to open to allow the battery change. At some point, you have to stand up, put on your big boy/girl/non-binary pants and be responsible for your actions and those of your kids.
 
  • Sad
Reactions: orbital~debris
AtomicDusk said:
Oh come on, this is ludicrous. It has a battery, replaceable is better than not. What do people want, every battery compartment to be screwed into place?
Click to expand...
This is the thing, here in the UK (I imagine the rest of Europe as its likely a legacy EU rule) virtually every button cell battery compartment is screwed into place. Most other battery compartments too for that matter. It’s genuinely really surprising that Apple didn’t do the same.

We’re talking about one little screw here, easily removed by any adult (or older child) to replace the battery, but more than enough to stop any smaller child from getting at it. Not sure how there can be anything controversial about the idea, other than that correcting the design might (gasp) cause some extremely minor inconvenience to Apple.
 
  • Like
Reactions: orbital~debris, freedomlinux, Shawn Llewellyn and 1 other person
dwfaust said:
Man, some people would complain if you hung them with a brand new rope.

How many things out there have replaceable coin-type batteries, some smaller than the CR2032? Most of those devices are fairly easy to open to allow the battery change. At some point, you have to stand up, put on your big boy/girl/non-binary pants and be responsible for your actions and those of your kids.
Click to expand...
Man, you win best comment in this thread. X10000000.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shawn Llewellyn and Solo_Photo
Marco Klobas said:
:) Especially with this engraving:

AirTags-mms.jpg
Click to expand...

What if they came in colors? red, yellow, brown, blue, green? What do the green ones do again?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Shawn Llewellyn
mazz0 said:
Well that's because you're only talking to the survivors. Actually 60% of children in the 80s died from ingesting batteries.
Click to expand...

Please cite your source for this statistic... sounds incredibly dubious... and of course, we all know 86.2% of all statistics are made up on the spot to support some bogus claim...
 
  • Haha
Reactions: deevey
dwfaust said:
Man, some people would complain if you hung them with a brand new rope.

How many things out there have replaceable coin-type batteries, some smaller than the CR2032? Most of those devices are fairly easy to open to allow the battery change. At some point, you have to stand up, put on your big boy/girl/non-binary pants and be responsible for your actions and those of your kids.
Click to expand...
I find this confusing, so lets take another item I've got hanging around my house, that's battery powered tea lights, they use watch batteries, as it happens they do have screw secured back plates, but even if they didn't, they're in candle holders in known locations and the kids know not to touch them, on the occasion where they have picked them we've quickly told them to put them back down and discouraged the kids from playing with them.

The issue is the AirTag use case, AirTags are there to make it easy to find things that you might have lost, by definition you don't know where they are. No parent can supervise their children 100% of the time, even the most attentive parent is juggling a lot of balls. So the kids know not to pick up the keys from the hook, however my keys are a prime example of something I'd want something like this on, because I tend to mislay them from time to time, which means by definition I have no idea where they are, I often don't know I've lost them until I want to find them, that provides plenty of opportunity for my child to dig them from under the table, which is where the cat has decided to dump them having found them somewhere else and stolen them.

It is extremely hard to pre-empt my children playing with my keys when they're somewhere I don't expect them to be, I know a child is under the table, I know they've got something, it's probably Duplo, as most of the time it's Duplo, however by the time I've investigate we may already have a problem.
 
  • Love
Reactions: orbital~debris
I was shocked they use this deadly removable battery. I always thought the reasons they didn’t have removable batteries in the first place was for safety. The thing about a watch battery like this is, if ingested it can kill a child, even if you find out about it and take the kid in for surgery.I would only use air tags inside a childproof carrier. Fortunately, these do exist🍸😺
 
  • Like
Reactions: orbital~debris
This is getting beyond ridiculous...

I won't point out the obvious hypocrisy.

But, I will point out that there are tens if not hundreds of devices that can be in an average home that have button batteries. Including children's toys. Maybe watch your kids or something.

EDIT: and don't think a screw is any kind of security feature. I have a keychain fob for my alarm system. Dropped it once from my hand which was at my side onto a tile floor and the flimsy plastic case busted open exposing the battery in all its glory. Its easy for a kid to get to a battery. I haven't dropped my air tag but I will say it takes a lot of force to open it up and get the battery out (I've tried).
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: jonnyb098
TheSavvyJ said:
I would like to draw your attention to the included documentation. It very clearly says keep away from children. You’re welcome 😉 View attachment 1769649
Click to expand...
Great, this has cleared it all up. It’s the Airtag owner’s responsibility to keep these away from my children, that’s what it says in the manual. Everyone’s ok with that right? Should anything go wrong (because Apple couldn’t afford to screw in the battery compartment) I can just sue you, right?
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: orbital~debris
Bustermd said:
This is getting beyond ridiculous...

I won't point out the obvious hypocrisy.

But, I will point out that there are tens if not hundreds of devices that can be in an average home that have button batteries. Including children's toys. Maybe watch your kids or something.
Click to expand...
Its use case isn't it though, they're being put on items you can reasonably expect to lose and is valuable enough that you want to find it, once it's lost guaranteeing how is or isn't interacting with it becomes incredibly complicated.

I personally can't think of anything in my house that runs off a watch battery that doesn't have a secured compartment, but none of those are designed to be attached to things I feel I might lose and therefore need to locate.

The fact it may be quite easy to open the compartment, combined with the fact the device is specifically designed to lost and then recovered introduces a double whammy that means simple supervision may not be enough.

As much as I hated my gen 1 Tiles for producing a ton of ewaste, the fact they were a completely sealed unit meant that they were pretty safe, now I wouldn't want Apple to go down that route, but would it be that hard to secure the AirTag properly?
 
  • Like
Reactions: orbital~debris
jonnyb098 said:
This is the point where you bow out of the convo, bud. You have no rational thoughts or explanations on this that use even an ounce of logic or critical thinking.
Click to expand...
Yeah except I’m literally quoting from the manual. If you buy an airtag, its your responsibility to read the manual and follow the instructions, not mine. The manual tells you (the owner of the airtag) to keep it away from children. Understood? What part of that was illogical?
 
  • Like
Reactions: orbital~debris
Eddy Munn said:
Most children could eat the whole thing if they wanted too, let alone the battery. Perhaps a 2021 Tide Pod challenge?
Click to expand...

kids that are young (see: still dumb enough) to ingest the battery will absolutely try to eat the whole tag first. it's certainly small enough to be a choking hazard as is, but so would be a pair of nail clippers yet cvs still sells those.
 
  • Disagree
  • Like
Reactions: orbital~debris and Eddy Munn
WitchDrAsh2 said:
It's not about personal responsibility it's about poor design, if you build an item that is designed to be attached to items to help you find them, which means that the purchaser loses them at least enough to decide spending ~$45 on an AirTag + case is money well spent, and you decide to use a battery that has a reputation for seriously harming young children and animals, and then you decide to make a device that has tool-less entry, that's pretty damn negligent, especially when the decision to not include a safety screw is not a functional decision at all, it's purely aesthetic as you don't need regular access to the battery compartment ~once a year according to apple.
Click to expand...
Agreed. You actually need a small
Tool to open up the Samsung tag to replace the battery. Also with it behind larger it’s less of a choking hazard.
 
Kids and idiots can eat lots of things that are dangerous, what is the issue here?
they have killer spiders down there, you have bigger issues to deal with.
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Analog Kid and jonnyb098
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back