Remove the accelerometer instead of speaker

[Belvoire]

I'm a little wondering why I haven't found anything on this yet.

I have installed an AirTag in my e-bike that is not supposed to ring all the time. Now there are instructions on how to remove the speaker to avoid the anti-stalking ringing.

This has the disadvantage of taking away part of the AirTag's function.

The ringing is triggered by movement, which in turn is registered by the acceleration sensor. Wouldn't it be easier and more effective to remove the acceleration sensor?

 

[fischersd]

I'm a little wondering why I haven't found anything on this yet.

I have installed an AirTag in my e-bike that is not supposed to ring all the time. Now there are instructions on how to remove the speaker to avoid the anti-stalking ringing.

This has the disadvantage of taking away part of the AirTag's function.

The ringing is triggered by movement, which in turn is registered by the acceleration sensor. Wouldn't it be easier and more effective to remove the acceleration sensor?

Well, two things:

1) You're assuming that movement is required - who knows how Apple has updated their algorithm as they're trying to make these more user friendly while increasing security / privacy

2) You're going to need to remove a component (accelerometer) from the system board. Trickier - and if the Airtag has an initialization sequence that does a check, you've fried it.

AirTag Teardown: Yeah, This Tracks

What’s inside Apple’s new tracker? A replaceable battery, a surprising speaker, and just enough room for a keyhole. See what else we found in our teardown!

www.ifixit.com

But, hey, go ahead and try that out and report back.

 

[Belvoire]

But, hey, go ahead and try that out and report back.

Unfortunately, I'm not that skilled in such things. But if it really hasn't been tried before (which would actually surprise me), I'll give it a try.

 

[Crowbot]

Well, two things:

1) You're assuming that movement is required - who knows how Apple has updated their algorithm as they're trying to make these more user friendly while increasing security / privacy

2) You're going to need to remove a component (accelerometer) from the system board. Trickier - and if the Airtag has an initialization sequence that does a check, you've fried it.

AirTag Teardown: Yeah, This Tracks

What’s inside Apple’s new tracker? A replaceable battery, a surprising speaker, and just enough room for a keyhole. See what else we found in our teardown!

www.ifixit.com

But, hey, go ahead and try that out and report back.

As the article stated, I have to believe that the tag pings the accelerometer as part of the power-on self test and wouldn't work without it.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

That's an interesting avenue to go down.

You could probably find a way to prevent the accelerometer from working. At its most basic fundamental design, an accelerometer is an iron ball attached to an object via a spring, and by using magnets to create a charge you can determine how the ball is moving in its cage, and use that plus some maths to create an acceleration and orientation graph.

Naturally smartphones miniaturize this, and use silicon and cones and grooves and all sorts of components I'm in no way qualified to talk about, but I'd assume that they still operate using a similar premise. So, if you can stop that part from creating a charge (most likely stop it from physically moving by melting it would be my guess) you could probably fool the airtag.

The trick would be destroying it enough that it doesn't work, but not so much that it doesn't send any output at all.

Edit: An Airtag isn't necessarily measuring acceleration, it's measuring movement. That can be done in a lot of different ways, such as e.g. using a compass and comparing one measurement against another. That's a far cry from trying to disable the accelerometer, which might by why you can't find anyone who has done this already. And if Apple isn't using a single chip that you can attempt to partially break, this will become much harder/impossible.

 

[Crowbot]

That's an interesting avenue to go down.

You could probably find a way to prevent the accelerometer from working. At its most basic fundamental design, an accelerometer is an iron ball attached to an object via a spring, and by using magnets to create a charge you can determine how the ball is moving in its cage, and use that plus some maths to create an acceleration and orientation graph.

Naturally smartphones miniaturize this, and use silicon and cones and grooves and all sorts of components I'm in no way qualified to talk about, but I'd assume that they still operate using a similar premise. So, if you can stop that part from creating a charge (most likely stop it from physically moving by melting it would be my guess) you could probably fool the airtag.

The trick would be destroying it enough that it doesn't work, but not so much that it doesn't send any output at all.

Edit: An Airtag isn't necessarily measuring acceleration, it's measuring movement. That can be done in a lot of different ways, such as e.g. using a compass and comparing one measurement against another. That's a far cry from trying to disable the accelerometer, which might by why you can't find anyone who has done this already. And if Apple isn't using a single chip that you can attempt to partially break, this will become much harder/impossible.

According to iFixit the AirTag uses a Bosch BMA280 accelerometer, which has a self-test function. It would be next to impossible to damage it enough to defeat its function and still pass the self-test. Apple would be silly not to test the components on power-up (battery insertion) of the tag.