CES 2022: Targus Debuts Backpack That Supports 'Find My' App Without an AirTag

[jdavid_rp]

What would be good to know is if the FindMy features in this backpack and items like the bicycles with FindMy support are exempt from having to have the anti stalking features like AirTag where it makes a sound after 8 hours away from its owner if moved.
In the bike and the rucksacks case, clearly the use case is anti-theft rather than loosing it. But it's not clear if these items would self-alert to the thief.

I think Apple should make an exemption for those big items that cant be used to secretly track someone, but then people could just try to use them taking them off the device.

About the actual situation, I think they are forced to have unwanted tracking protection features to avoid my first example

 

[agostonbarna]

They should have given it the "joke of the year" award instead a CES innovation award ? I mean how could you possibly lose a backpack from your back? Even if you put it down for a minute, this is not a small object that easily gets lost in a messy room.
And as others already mentioned even if you have some exotic reason to track down your backpack, you could just put a ****in airtag in it.
Even Intel CPUs are more innovative than this!

 

[iSayuSay]

Find My support seems great until Apple announce something new for its Airtag, which render this backpack outdated and not receiving firmware updates.

I’d rather have a separate Airtag. It’s only $29 for something you can always replace whenever Apple came up with Airtag 2 or something.

 

[Bull 07]

You can track excellent gift for my girlfriend

 

[liberte1776]

Great unless they charge arm + leg.

Seriously though, how is this any different from sewing an AirTag into any other backpack?

 

[Bull 07]

My girlfriend doesn't have a good memory.

 

[Morgenland]

I don’t know. I find this to be a stupid product. A backpack that at some point you need to change out the battery for the tracker? Just create a sewed in pocket in which an Air Tag can be inserted and be done. ?

Presumably, the backpack is not long-lasting, so no need to change the battery.

 

[Morgenland]

What's wrong with the country? Is something like this worth an innovation award?

 

[harriska2]

They should have given it the "joke of the year" award instead a CES innovation award ? I mean how could you possibly lose a backpack from your back? Even if you put it down for a minute, this is not a small object that easily gets lost in a messy room.
And as others already mentioned even if you have some exotic reason to track down your backpack, you could just put a ****in airtag in it.
Even Intel CPUs are more innovative than this!

You wouldn’t believe how many people leave their backpack in their car and have it stolen. In my small town alone it is several a day (college town).

 

[Think|Different]

Finally! We need more and more of this stuff.

 

[ghanwani]

It's called 'Find Their' by hackers because it allows them to find anybody's stuff making it easy to see when it's unattended.

 

[parseckadet]

I would have thought way more businesses would have taken advantage of this goldmine of an opportunity that is an open Find My Network and U1 chip.

Yet here we are like over half a year later and I can probably count on one hand all the third party accessories with this built in. I’d have thought there’d be tons of wallets, luggage,
backpacks, things like KeySmart, expensive clothing like winter jackets, or often forgot about umbrellas with this built in. Yet, no.

What gives?

What gives is that it's a lot harder to come up with a shipping product than just snapping your fingers and making it happen. Just look at MagSafe stuff. We're a year into it and we're just now starting to see some actually good accessories come out that are more than just "slap some magnets in the thing and call it a day."

 

[chaospet]

Assuming apple has probably already thought of this and a device that has been labeled as lost cannot have tracking disabled. I’ll test it out today on my AirTag

That would be interesting to know. I assume though that any thief with half a brain would scan for the airtag and disable immediately, before it has been labeled as lost. I also am concerned about pranksters in public places (coffee shops, buses, whatever) just disabling any FindMy devices they detect near them for fun. Unless there are some measures to prevent this, I can't imagine wanting to use an AirTag outside the home now. I guess it's still useful for finding a lost remote or whatever, but the new "Unknown Items" feature seems to be begging for abuse and really limits the functionality of the FindMy service.

 

[fischersd]

Totally forgot Apple opened the find my platform. Has anyone actually been using it yet besides those guys? I feel like no one bothers with mag safe accessories either. Which is weird

VanMoof bicycles offer built in FindMy on two of their newer models. There's car charging cradles that have MagSafe built in (bought one for my girlfriend when we got new phones this year - works great!)

 

[Rocko99991]

Or put a tag and use whatever bag you want.

 

[parseckadet]

Sounds cool. But given the new update to the FindMy app in iOS 15.2, it sounds like anyone who was close to you could just disable the tracking feature in your backpack, rendering it utterly useless. No thanks.

"With the iOS 15.2 beta that was released today, Apple has added enhancements to the Find Myapp. There's a new feature that's designed to let users scan for AirTags or Find My-enabled items that might be tracking them.​

​

When opening the ‌Find My‌ app after installing the beta and going to the "Items" tab, there's an option for "Items That Can Track Me." Tapping on this allows users to search for nearby items that might be used to track their location.​

​

When activated, the Unknown Items feature scans for anything that's nearby, and will let users know either way if there's a device that belongs to someone else nearby. If an item is detected, Apple offers instructions on how to disable the device so that it can no longer be used for tracking purposes."​

That would be interesting to know. I assume though that any thief with half a brain would scan for the airtag and disable immediately, before it has been labeled as lost. I also am concerned about pranksters in public places (coffee shops, buses, whatever) just disabling any FindMy devices they detect near them for fun. Unless there are some measures to prevent this, I can't imagine wanting to use an AirTag outside the home now. I guess it's still useful for finding a lost remote or whatever, but the new "Unknown Items" feature seems to be begging for abuse and really limits the functionality of the FindMy service.

So your first mistake is assuming most thieves have half a brain. Apple has also made it very clear, from the day AirTags were first announced, that they are NOT intended to track stolen items. If that's what you want you need to find another product. Period.

Second, Apple ALREADY offers instructions on how to disable found AirTags. They're instructions on how to remove the battery. They're not going to offer an on-screen button to just turn the AirTag off. So your concern about the prankster would require someone to sneak around, root through everyone's stuff to find the AirTags, remove the batteries, then put the AirTags back where they were, all without being noticed by someone else. Seems pretty unlikely.

 

[Shirasaki]

I would have thought way more businesses would have taken advantage of this goldmine of an opportunity that is an open Find My Network and U1 chip.

Yet here we are like over half a year later and I can probably count on one hand all the third party accessories with this built in. I’d have thought there’d be tons of wallets, luggage,
backpacks, things like KeySmart, expensive clothing like winter jackets, or often forgot about umbrellas with this built in. Yet, no.

What gives?

There must be a lot of catches general user don’t care but dealbreaker enough for many businesses to not participate this technically “open” find my network. One issue I can think about is: apple can always come up with their in-house solution and destroy competitor given superior iOS integration and much more support from all sides.

 

[diego.caraballo]

I would have thought way more businesses would have taken advantage of this goldmine of an opportunity that is an open Find My Network and U1 chip.

Yet here we are like over half a year later and I can probably count on one hand all the third party accessories with this built in. I’d have thought there’d be tons of wallets, luggage,
backpacks, things like KeySmart, expensive clothing like winter jackets, or often forgot about umbrellas with this built in. Yet, no.

What gives?

I believe that many business WERE interested until a quick chat with their legal department....there are so many possibilities of this going wrong...
Imagine a college giving backpack to their students to later find that one employee is tracking the children, a coworker giving it as a present to another just to track him/her, a wife using the tracked positions to fill a demand in court...
No external warnings about the feature as well.

Any of the above cases appears in the news and your company brand will be suffering. It can backfire quickly.

 

[rictus007]

Chipolo One. I’ve been using their trackers for months.

I’m curious do you like them (chipolo one)?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

This is what Tile should have been doing with their enormous lead in the market. I think they tried for, like, one year then gave up.

 

[chaospet]

Second, Apple ALREADY offers instructions on how to disable found AirTags. They're instructions on how to remove the battery. They're not going to offer an on-screen button to just turn the AirTag off. So your concern about the prankster would require someone to sneak around, root through everyone's stuff to find the AirTags, remove the batteries, then put the AirTags back where they were, all without being noticed by someone else. Seems pretty unlikely.

Thanks, this would actually be a helpful point of clarification. From reading the original article, I got the impression that the instructions were for a procedure that can be done in-app to disable a device. But I see now it does not explicitly state that. I don’t have 15.2 beta, have you tried it to see if all the new feature provides are instructions for removing the battery? If so, that would at least alleviate the malicious pranking worry.

 

[metapunk2077fail]

I feel this type of thing only works well if the tracking device's circuit is woven throughout the material or the seams, otherwise someone will just cut the device out and still take your stuff.

 

[4jasontv]

Yeah - Apple is specifically making FindMy something just for lost or forgotten items, and really moving it away from anti-theft. I am curious as to the overlap between the two (how often do you lose something due to theft, vs. just being lost)?

Children get lost all the time without being stolen. Especially in large department stores where they can climb inside of clothes racks. Same with pets. Good luck finding your cat when it's time to pill them.

 

[ams1117]

FindMy for misc. stuff is really not about preventing theft, unlike the ones on phones/laptops/tablets. Even if the thief does not disable FindMy on the bag, the only thing you'll be recover is the bag itself, not the stuff inside.

It's more like a small quality of life improvement to the problem of "where did I leave my stuff".

 

[agostonbarna]

You wouldn’t believe how many people leave their backpack in their car and have it stolen. In my small town alone it is several a day (college town).

Hey,
Yeah, thats an issue here as well, but I think the solution is not to buy a smart backpack that you can track down, but to simply never leave any value in the car. But you are right, good luck with teaching this good practice to people, especially to college students ?
But even for them, I'm not sure a consumer tracking device will make the situation much better, if someone took the effort to broke into a car and took a backpack I would rather not follow the guy and get stabbed for it.
I don't know the situation in other places but here the police won't do **** about things like this, and they definietly won't follow a backpack ?