Why, bloody hell, why?! It does not make sense, especially with such device.
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Apple Removes AirTag Battery Level Indicator From the Find My App
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The next AirTag won’t have any battery. Will be powered by your cell phone signal. 
I think that’s a bit wasteful and when it comes to something like batteries that have a negative impact on the environment I personally would not do it. Also I suspect the plastic snap together mechanism is going to fail at some point so if you’re doing it twice as much that means it’s going to fail twice as fast.
Yeah I just started having low battery warnings, even thoigh the battery in it was only 3-4 months old. Popped in a new battery, was fine for a few days, then the earnings would pop up, then show full again a few minutes later. Cleaned the contacts, it happened again. Something else is going on. Maybe a messed up firmware update?
The batteries used in these can reliably use voltage to determine level. there's 0 reasoning to say its inaccurate and 0 reason they can not display battery life when the voltage on these battery types are well documented to relate to life remaining.
Apple has BMS(battery management teams) theres 0 excuse to say they can't display a simple voltage to percentage graph they can but they have a reason to remove it.
It’s just another example of well known technical limitation being introduced to unaware Apple product users.
By that, I mean Blackberry users were aware that having their phones next to office conference phones would make noise when the Blackberry was receiving a notification, so they just kept them away from conference phones. However, the fact that it happened on the first iPhones was UNACCEPTABLE! HOW COULD APPLE RELEASE SOMETHING LIKE THIS??It was simply how the technology worked. There are folks that feel physics shouldn’t Apply to Apple ;D
I have no idea what gives you such confidence in your opinion but you are absolutely 100% wrong.
Lithium Coin-Cell Batteries: Predicting an Application Lifetime | Analog Devices
Maxim builds a large number of products that incorporate lithium coin-cell batteries to provide nonvolatile (NV) memory or real-time clock (RTC) functionality in the absence of system power. The typical specification for these products has been to provide a 10-year battery lifetime in the...
"While a flat discharge curve is desirable for backup supply voltage, it does make predicting the remaining electrical capacity difficult."
"The manufacturer of the IC/battery system has control over the selected components and manufacturing process. Properly selected components and manufacturing screens should result in adequate system-level lifetime."
In this case, the manufacturer does not have control of the selected components, the user has control of the battery.
My guess is the old indicator was based on an assumed capacity, time, and duty cycle, but since that battery is user replaceable it is meaningless if Apple doesn't know what replacement battery was installed and was probably giving inaccurate readings. The low battery notification is likely based on the knee in the curve-- when the voltage reaches 2.5V it's unambiguous that the battery is at end of life.
Accuracy is a relative term, especially when you combine with bill of sale. Apple is here to make a profit too. I'm not sure what people are expecting, Apple should put $100 worth of battery monitoring and control circuitry in a $29 device? Maybe give everyone a $1000 Fluke multimeter with purchase?
Voltage is actually a poor indicator of battery life. Batteries are a form of chemistry and voltage can change from hot, cold, has it been connected to circuity/current for awhile, etc. Battery voltage curves also change throughout their life.
If anyone's ever pulled one of these out from one of their devices and let is sit for awhile then put it back in said device and have it work again for awhile, you know what I'm writing about.
It is surprisingly difficult to measure the actual charge levels of a battery. You need to measure output voltages and estimate from usage. It's not like you can directly measure the amount of power in a cell. As a result there is always some uncertainty in a battery power level estimate. The accuracy is worse for smaller batteries where the uncertainty can be a larger percentage of the total than in larger batteries where the uncertainty is relatively less.
Just have to think different again. Trust in Apple, they know what is best.
I still wonder how people survived before an Apple tracking tag.
I still wonder how people survived before an Apple tracking tag.
These AirTags are using off-the-shelf coin batteries that do not have internal charge monitoring circuits. They vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and batch to batch. Apple has tried to estimate charge but that can be difficult to do accurately. Would you rather have detailed but in accurate data or just a notification when the power level falls enough to measure? Even once you get a notification, you likely have days before the AirTag really runs out of power.
It seems like they assume you will be in a place where you can readily obtain a battery when the one in the airtag is almost spent. You might be on an expedition, away from a convenience battery source. Pre-trip, it would be handy to know the battery status. In addition, visual feedback of the battery's demise would help anticipate future needs. Are these the same people who designed the screen display without going outdoors on a sunny day wearing polarized glasses - a common situation to be in with an iPhone or iPad Mini?
The low battery notification likely is triggered when the battery voltage starts dropping. that is a fairly reliable indicator that the charge is low. Before that, it can be very difficult to know the state of charge for a battery that does not have built-in charge monitoring circuits. The batteries on phones and laptops do have these circuits and the charge levels can be measured more accurately.
Wonder if the issue is due to the wide variety of CR2023 brands available? Maybe certain higher quality batteries (Duracell, etc) can produce more reliable results than cheaper brands? And, because of this unpredictability, Apple decided to remove the feature?
I'm no battery chemist, though, so this is probably just bad speculation on my part lol.
I'm no battery chemist, though, so this is probably just bad speculation on my part lol.
It's very hard to estimate coin cell batteries because not all of them have the same discharge curve. But it's easy to know when it's getting too low to operate properly.
Built-in rechargeable batteries are different because you know the exact characteristics of the battery and you can record the graph over time, or even install a coulomb counter.
Of course Apple can say it only uses Panasonic CR2032 batteries but that would be dumb.
Apple could have installed a non-replaceable battery and make the product better in many other ways and give you an accurate counter down before the end of life for a given AirTag. Most people like how the battery is replaceable but you just can't have everything you want.
Built-in rechargeable batteries are different because you know the exact characteristics of the battery and you can record the graph over time, or even install a coulomb counter.
Of course Apple can say it only uses Panasonic CR2032 batteries but that would be dumb.
Apple could have installed a non-replaceable battery and make the product better in many other ways and give you an accurate counter down before the end of life for a given AirTag. Most people like how the battery is replaceable but you just can't have everything you want.
But...but... with that kind of reasoning how do we get people worked up to start a "gate"!?
Because when it doesn't update automatically, it's nice to be able to do the update manually and not just wait for something to occur. If it "just worked", there wouldn't be a need for the tool that Apple removed, then reintroduced.
Hopefully I don't lose anything and know about the battery being low somehow..
It's unbelievable how people can pick about anything...
Why is it so hard for a few of you guys to understand that it IS hard, even for a trillion company like Apple, to keep accurate readings of "dumb" batteries, produced at multiple specs from multiple manufacturers?
And why is it so hard to just replace the battery once in a while if you feel that the "low battery" reading isn't trustful enough for you and you need to actively use your AirTag? Just buy a couple of batteries and keep them around for when you need it.
My car's remote keys uses the same battery. You would assume Audi is an experienced enough company to provide correct readings of battery level and give me the % in real time, right? Wrong. I receive a "low battery" warning when it's time to change it.
Why should it be different with Apple?
Please stop being assisted people for no reason. This isn't a first world problem.
Why is it so hard for a few of you guys to understand that it IS hard, even for a trillion company like Apple, to keep accurate readings of "dumb" batteries, produced at multiple specs from multiple manufacturers?
And why is it so hard to just replace the battery once in a while if you feel that the "low battery" reading isn't trustful enough for you and you need to actively use your AirTag? Just buy a couple of batteries and keep them around for when you need it.
My car's remote keys uses the same battery. You would assume Audi is an experienced enough company to provide correct readings of battery level and give me the % in real time, right? Wrong. I receive a "low battery" warning when it's time to change it.
Why should it be different with Apple?
Please stop being assisted people for no reason. This isn't a first world problem.