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Has anyone been able to successfully AirTag their car?

sniffies

sniffies

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jul 31, 2005
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somewhere warm, dark, and cozy
So, I hid the AirTag inside my car that’s in the driveway, you know, in case it gets stolen or something.

I went back inside the house and tried to locate the AirTag, and all I got was “Searching for signal.”

Will it be able to pick up nearby iPhones’ signal eventually? Or is tracking cars useless?

I know that Apple doesn’t advertise it. It’s really just a small tracker for tracking small things. But a stolen car sounded like a perfect scenario.
 
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I'd say, in theory, if you had another iOS (maybe iPod?) device, you can always place that device near your car are a starting point to locate it. Since it needs an iOS 13/14 device to anonymously track it, you probably need that in between to pick it up.

In real life, the car would need to respond to nearby iOS devices, so if it gets stolen, it would need nearby iOS drivers to pick it up. Out in the sticks? That's gonna be a tricky one.
 
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You need to understand how airtag works first. yes what you want is doable, its really no different than if someone stole your keys...it relies on another iOS device to come in contact with them for the FindMy network to recognize it. The difference is that you hid the tag inside a giant metal can, so bluetooth range will be reduced.
 
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sniffies said:
So, I hid the AirTag inside my car that’s in the driveway, you know, in case it gets stolen or something.

I went back inside the house and tried to locate the AirTag, and all I got was “Searching for signal.”

Will it be able to pick up nearby iPhones’ signal eventually? Or is tracking cars useless?

I know that Apple doesn’t advertise it. It’s really just a small tracker for tracking small things. But a stolen car sounded like a perfect scenario.
Click to expand...
Other people (and their iPhones running iOS 14.5 or higher) have to come in proximity to your airtag. It’s not a GPS tracker.
 
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digitalfx said:
The difference is that you hid the tag inside a giant metal can, so bluetooth range will be reduced.
Click to expand...

Yes and I would add that consequently the location of the device within the car probably has a significant impact. It might work better if it is higher up and close to the windows.

Or if the thief stealing the car has an iPhone with the relevant location services enabled, then their phone will be relaying the location ;-)
 
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haruhiko said:
Nope, signal is too weak to have any practical use. See my post here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/airtags-disappointing-performance.2294265/
Click to expand...

Precise location won’t work well for sure. But the more traditional tracking option with a approximate dot on the map should be fine.

At the very least the Find My App should report the car’s last known location when there was someone inside it with an iPhone. And most likely if if the car is in a urban environment it will be detected by other phones around it (again, not for precise location purposes) which will report its approximate location.
 
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Leaving it in the car is working absolutely fine for me.
1D811B92-66A9-4B80-B6BF-7E6C7FCA74A2.jpeg
 
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How do you lose a car? It’s not exactly small….
having said that, both Android and iOS show where you parked your car anyway.
and if the car is stolen, better to have police involved.

I don’t quite understand the use case…
 
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long distance tracking depends on other iOS/iPadOS devices.
Bluetooth on your devices offers precise location tracking.

If you somewhere into the outback, park your car, hike and get lost, there is probably a very low possibility to “find” your car - if members of the local fauna are avid iPhone users - sadly Apple does not publish how many iPhones or iPads are sold&used by e.g. Cervus canadensis or Vulpes vulpes - and there is good coverage of your telco provider you are a happy camper of course. 😎

Depending on your car model its body acts like a faraday cage. Which will impact on how good a bluetooth signal emitted inside can be detected on the outside.
 
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I’m going to test this today. If I understand the wording right, the AirTag actually has to be in Lost mode to utilize other iOS devices, but I’ll find out today if that’s the case or not.
 
cvtem said:
How do you lose a car? It’s not exactly small….
having said that, both Android and iOS show where you parked your car anyway.
and if the car is stolen, better to have police involved.

I don’t quite understand the use case…
Click to expand...
In a huge parking lot, it can be hard for some people to remember where they parked, especially if there are no lot or section labels. Using the AirTag option may be easier for them, than manually setting a parking location in Apple Maps.
 
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If your car gets stolen, the thieves will be notified that there is an airtag in the car if they have an iPhone. Because the airtag doesn't know it's in the car and it doesn't know it's your car. So the airtag will think, you've put an airtag in their car and you are tracking them. So I fail to see the point
 
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mashinhead said:
If your car gets stolen, the thieves will be notified that there is an airtag in the car if they have an iPhone. Because the airtag doesn't know it's in the car and it doesn't know it's your car. So the airtag will think, you've put an airtag in their car and you are tracking them. So I fail to see the point
Click to expand...
Some thieves will be freaked out by the notification and might abandon the car.
You can also hide the AirTag somewhere difficult to find.

I am not clear when it would start ringing (3 days?) but there are also ways around that.

If you are very serious, you can do a double air tag solution. The thief will find the first one and dispose of it. When they still get a notification, they might think it’s a bug.

This is by no means a perfect car tracking solution but it is far cheaper and less hassle than GPS/mobile data based solutions that need to be hard wired to the car (or with regular battery charging), and can arguably also be easily found and disabled.
 
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Absrnd said:
Looking at all your responses, you don't want it to work :)
Click to expand...
Be constructive and actually say something in your response please thanks.

Please let me know how is GPS location going to work in an indoor or underground parking lot. Not everyone here lives in the US and outdoor mega parking lots are not that common.
 
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