"Left Behind" Distance

[mikecwest]

I get the same for my iPad Mini, AirPods Pro, and on occasion my iPhone. The times that it seems to have worked is when leaving my AirPods Pro in the car while I walk in a store. It doesn't seem to be triggered by distance, but time.

Last week I was in a car with my Sister and I received a notification that someone's AirPods Pro was moving with me. I couldn't clear the notification for several hours.

I think the last update of something fixed it, not sure if it was the iPad OS or MacOS, or iPhoneOS update that did it...but it stopped, unless I actually DID leave it in the hotel room, or in my car when I go in a store or something.

 

[mikecwest]

I would pop the battery out of the tag and then re-pair just to see if that helps.

I can't pop the battery out of an iPad

 

[mikecwest]

Popping the battery out of the AirTag doesn't remove the pairing. All of the logic for when notifications are sent are in the app and what Apple stores in their server-side database in the cloud.

Un-pairing and re-pairing it may help with the notifications, but it could be a corner-case that @mikecwest is hitting.

Everyone that's running into issues should be using the feedback app (if they're running beta iOS) or Apple's feedback site (https://www.apple.com/feedback/airtag/) to report these issues to Apple - it's the only way that they'll get fixed.

I used the feedback app regarding it, but like in most cases, it doesn’t notify you about anything...they seem to have g fixed it

 

[KeithCody]

Yesterday when I was driving my iPad's battery died and I started receiving left behind alerts with the freeway coordinates of where the battery died at.

 

[guinnessduck]

I get the notification when I go from the locker rooms out to the hockey rink to play in our beer league. Pops up not too long after I'm away from it.. probably a minute or so.

Seems pretty random with some people getting them so long after they are away that it's not as useful, and some of us seem to get them in a more prompt manner.

 

[8mrg81]

I wonder if it is using two triggers to decide if item was left behind:

- some other iphone/apple device just registered airtag's location and it is different than current owner's location by X feet.
- owner's iphone lost the BT signal from the airtag after walking away far enough.

Perhaps the first one triggers a notification right away it matches the criteria. In this case, how soon we get it really depends on how soon someone else walks next to our air tag with their iphone. Or if it is at home, do we have other apple device which can see it so it can let know apple servers immediately?

The second trigger might have a timeout. For example it generates a notification 10 minutes after loosing the BT signal from airtag. So this one might be just a "failover" if the first trigger will not happen sooner.

You get my point? This could explain total randomness (in terms "when we get them" but not "if we get them at all")