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Has anyone been able to successfully AirTag their car?
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It’s not an anti theft device. It’s not a device to find your car in a car park. Its not a live tracking device. It’s only a device specifically for finding your keys that dropped into the couch.🤣
I put one in my trunk of my car this morning and it is working great...I street park in the city, so quite a few people walking by. Mainly trying to use it so I remember where I park my car (I often don't drive for days). Apple Maps rarely gets where I parked correct.
Working fine for me at office and at home. Tested driveway, garage, and street parking. I drive an older car (1998 toyota supra), with little of the OEM electrical left and wiring all re-done, so maybe less interference than a newer car. We usually get a car an hour throughout the night driving by on the street (suburbs), more during the day. I've only seen the location go un-updated for more than an hour once, though I'm not checking constantly. Curious to see if any neighbors get notified about being tracked if one of their phones is close enough to be the one doing all the updating rather than random people driving by. I put it on the inside of my sun-visor, really just as an excuse to get a 4 pack. I think I'd be comfortable using this as a tracker for my wife's car but don't think I'd recommend it as the only tracker for anything rare or that's a common target for theft.
I found these to be all but useless, one on the dog, one on our keys and one in the car, basically they will only work when in very close proximity, 3mtrs, and if I walk away, they drop out at 10mtrs, and no we don't have faulty iPhone's or 4 faulty Airtags, they are just plain silly, was expecting at least 25 to 35mtrs range from my phone, even when I leave the wife's phone right near the Airtag and track with mine, still drops out at 10mtrs, so either there is a major flaw with the network at the moment and it requires some work from Apple still, or these are just snake oil.
Again, phones and tags are not faulty, phones are on the latest IOS, Wifi is great, internet is great, 4G is great, Airtag range range is very underwhelming.
I mean if my keys are in the bedroom and I'm in the kitchen, I cant find my keys, and I have a pretty small house, I cant even activate the audio alert until I'm within 3 meters of it, and that's with another iPhone within 2mtrs of it....? honestly its pretty bloody useless, if I could activate the audio, my wife that's sitting on my keys could call out to me, and say "found them" but no, need to be actually staring at them in order to find them???? makes no sense to me.
Again, phones and tags are not faulty, phones are on the latest IOS, Wifi is great, internet is great, 4G is great, Airtag range range is very underwhelming.
I mean if my keys are in the bedroom and I'm in the kitchen, I cant find my keys, and I have a pretty small house, I cant even activate the audio alert until I'm within 3 meters of it, and that's with another iPhone within 2mtrs of it....? honestly its pretty bloody useless, if I could activate the audio, my wife that's sitting on my keys could call out to me, and say "found them" but no, need to be actually staring at them in order to find them???? makes no sense to me.
There are two ranges I think:
- the range which enables precise location. Indeed my experience is that basically it is limited to the room next door (or sometimes a bit further). But for me it is not a deal breaker: if you walk through the corridor(s) of a house/apartments the phone will eventually pick up the signal and tell you which room to go into.
- the range which lets iPhones connect to the AirTag and report its approximate location to the FindMy network. I haven't measured it precisely but clearly it is a longer range.
The second one is fine, and for me is all I want for my dog tracking, if she gets out, its nice to know I actually have some sort of chance tracking her location, anything is better than nothing, and this appears to work, its update frequency is slow, but it does work, and I like the fact that anyone that finds her can scan the tag for my contact information, but in the first case, finding my keys, its useless for me, if I can hit the sound activate while I'm within say 5mtrs or in the next room, then its pretty crap, they need longer range, maybe I need to wait for the Airtag 2 and attach it to my Airtag 1 so I don't loose it.
Surely anyone that finds your dog could also just read the engraved tag on her collar that contains your contact details?
You're assuming positive intent. If the dog is stolen, or found by bad actors, having an AirTag could give you time to get to your dog's location. I have a tag with my contact information on my dog, but I also have an AirTag on his collar.
To your other point, many people wouldn't immediately know what to do with that tag if they saw it. I wish the metal side had "If found, please hold near your phone," or something like that etched into it so that people would know what to do.
Thats weird because its the exact same underlying mechanism. Apple Maps is using the location of your phone to determine where you parked and Find My device is using the location of other peoples phones to track your device.
True but not at all what the OP posted regarding the dogs finder getting contact details off the tag.
.... If they knew how to.
..... And even if they did, why bother since its all written (one hopes) on the old fashioned engraved collar tag.
Re bad actors, wont help with a stolen dog since the tag will be disabled immedately (or worse for owner, dropped in a bus or similar to have you chasing around).
Might help with a lost dog. Maybe. But you can buy a GPS enabled tracking device for $100 that doesn't rely on the happenstance of passers by with iPhones so its a poor solution. Spend the extra money on a proper tracker.
Probably not, theres a variety of settings all of which have to be set right. It had stopped working on my iPhone 12 and i just found why last week, one particular setting of several wasnt toggled on, it was "remember significant locations" once i set that on it worked.
It is conveniently and intuitively (
) set hereSettings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System -> Services -> Significant Locations.
Once set on, the parked car menu option suddenly appears in Maps settings.
If that doesn't work for you try this checklist (this is where i found the answer above) maybe one of the other settings isn't right
iOS Parked Car Feature Not Working, How-To - AppleToolBox
This nice Apple Maps feature was introduced iOS 10 and is really a much-welcomed and loved feature. How many times have you visited a mall or an office
appletoolbox.com
thank you, that workedProbably not, theres a variety of settings all of which have to be set right. It had stopped working on my iPhone 12 and i just found why last week, one particular setting of several wasnt toggled on, it was "remember significant locations" once i set that on it worked.
It is conveniently and intuitively (
Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System -> Services -> Significant Locations.
Once set on, the parked car menu option suddenly appears in Maps settings.
If that doesn't work for you try this checklist (this is where i found the answer above) maybe one of the other settings isn't right
iOS Parked Car Feature Not Working, How-To - AppleToolBox
This nice Apple Maps feature was introduced iOS 10 and is really a much-welcomed and loved feature. How many times have you visited a mall or an office
Ooh. Apple should provide U1 chips to car stereo makers....not only CarPlay integrated, but now an anti-theft device (and, as it's soldered to the system board of the head unit, Apple could disable the privacy / stalker notifications).
...and makers of anything else that's $$$ enough that you want to protect it (DSLR's, motorcycles....)
...and makers of anything else that's $$$ enough that you want to protect it (DSLR's, motorcycles....)
The range of U1 is too short for locating cars as pointed out by many users including me in this forum. What’s the point to put an inferior way of tracking if most new cars have internet connectivity now.
So, you really don't understand how radios work, right? Range of RF is dictated by a number of factors. Not the least of which is the size and sensitivity of the antennae as well as the frequency, signal strength and protocols used.
Right...inferior way of tracking = 1.6B Apple devices.
The find my network is utilizing bluetooth, wifi as well as ultra-wideband (U1 chip). (don't forget that Apple uses the time in flight part of the wifi protocol to determine distance - it's how they unlock Mac's with the Apple Watch close by).
Having the real estate in the head unit for a larger antennae as well as the considerable amperage available in the car battery means the head unit can have a hell of a lot more range than your iPhone's radios.
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Check out below article, writer tracked his wife’s car all week summarises +\-‘s & limitations etc - post trial he says air tag can and did track his vehicle…caveats withstanding https://www.forbes.com/sites/barryc...ant-car-tracker-as-this-road-test-proves/amp/
Yeah, the author of that article is a little confused - "If the thief uses a modern iPhone, they may trigger Apple’s anti-stalking feature, which pops an alert on their phone to say that an unknown AirTag is moving with them. However, that won’t kick in for 72 hours after the AirTag was last in range of its owner, so you should have a decent window to locate a stolen car."
If the thief has an iPhone, they're going to be alerted that there's an AirTag tracking them when they reach a "significant" location. Likely Work or Home on their contact card in their phone. The 72 hours limit is for when the Air Tag has been away from it's owner, and will send sporadic chirps to try to be found. (which is why I"m going to be putting one of these under the hood of my Rav4 when it finally f---ing arrives). (Sorry...considerable production delays due to Covid...it's more than double the normal delivery time)
Edit: Reported the error to Forbes. (there was no contact information for the Author on their site). He really should have ensured that his partner was an iPhone user, so he could have observed the privacy measures that Apple has put in place.
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I have an Airtag on my wife’s keys paired with MY account.
She NEVER received any kind of alert on her iPhone 12 Max (iOS updated).
Not even when I had to travel out of state for 3 days.
So (I’m assuming), if someone is within your family members on icloud, it won’t notify them (?)
She NEVER received any kind of alert on her iPhone 12 Max (iOS updated).
Not even when I had to travel out of state for 3 days.
So (I’m assuming), if someone is within your family members on icloud, it won’t notify them (?)
Hmm. The short answer is we don't know. There's been no indication from Apple that family sharing has been considered. (To do this properly, the other family members should need to acknowledge that they agree to the AirTag tracking them).
We really do need the administration of tags shared with the family - so everyone can see locations of everything - at least having the option to enable that for everyone. (maybe the kids don't get to see where everything is)
Can't have them spying on the parents prior to any gift-giving celebrations. 