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Wife getting alerts all of a sudden...

amemoryoncelost

amemoryoncelost

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 14, 2004
325
1
I've been using a few airtags basically since they were released. One in each car and then another in a backpack I sometimes use while on the road for work, when it's not being used for that, it's sitting on our couch or on the table next to it.

Today, one of the car airtags was beeping and when my wife got in, it alerted her that she had an airtag following her.
When we got home, the backpack one was now beeping and saying the same thing.

We've never experienced this before and while it isn't the end of the world, just wondering if anyone else has started experiencing this with the latest firmware update and if there is anything we can do to stop it.
 
Sounds like temporary loss of it tracking your phone and I would just check your phone hasn't logged out of iCloud and restart it and see if it happens again. It will only do these alerts for following other users if the phone logged into the iCloud account where they are registered isn't close by.
 
Your wife should always get the car one if the car airtag isn't tied to her Apple ID (I don't know your situation, but if you each have a car, the one in HER car should be on her Apple ID - or she'll get these regularly). That's by design. (and, a little creepy to be tracking your wife if that's your intention).

Stationary items should not be given that notification, as they're actually not moving with you. The suggestion above is a good one that will hopefully fix that corner case.
 
fischersd said:
Your wife should always get the car one if the car airtag isn't tied to her Apple ID (I don't know your situation, but if you each have a car, the one in HER car should be on her Apple ID - or she'll get these regularly). That's by design. (and, a little creepy to be tracking your wife if that's your intention).

Stationary items should not be given that notification, as they're actually not moving with you. The suggestion above is a good one that will hopefully fix that corner case.
Click to expand...
They're in my two cars, none in her car. I have an old toyota pickup that I use on the weekends and random stuff, but they've gone up in value and supposedly easy to steal. The other is in my 4Runner, which is kind of on the side of the house and I hadn't driven for a few days. She doesn't want one in her car, which is fine and it would be tied to her account if she wanted one.

I wasn't caught off guard with the one in the 4Runner on the side of the house because it had been a few days since I last drove, so thought maybe it was far enough away to lose contact. But the bag inside the house was definitely weird.

I'll maybe log out of iCloud and back in like @iamasmith suggested and see if we have any problems moving forward. Just thought it was really weird to have two go off for the first time ever, within an hour of each other.
 
amemoryoncelost said:
They're in my two cars, none in her car. I have an old toyota pickup that I use on the weekends and random stuff, but they've gone up in value and supposedly easy to steal. The other is in my 4Runner, which is kind of on the side of the house and I hadn't driven for a few days. She doesn't want one in her car, which is fine and it would be tied to her account if she wanted one.

I wasn't caught off guard with the one in the 4Runner on the side of the house because it had been a few days since I last drove, so thought maybe it was far enough away to lose contact. But the bag inside the house was definitely weird.

I'll maybe log out of iCloud and back in like @iamasmith suggested and see if we have any problems moving forward. Just thought it was really weird to have two go off for the first time ever, within an hour of each other.
Click to expand...
Yep, the "rub" is, the logic isn't just in the AirTags - it's also in what Apple does in the cloud. They could be doing server-side changes that may also make the notifications more often. Stationary items like a backpack at home should definitely not be triggering an alert (you could do Apple a solid and report that) https://www.apple.com/feedback/airtag/
 
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logged out and back in with iCloud, reported this to Apple and going to monitor moving forward. Was kinda hoping it was a widespread thing and not just me, but not looking like so after a little bit of poking around the web. Not the end of the world by any means either :)

Thank you both!
 
After a year of travelling around with my husband with an AirTag in his wallet, I received a notification for the first time the other day that an AirTag was travelling with me. We were just going for groceries.

He did not receive a similar notification, even though I had one on my keys in my pocket on the same trip.
 
Did you change your phone? The AirTag is paired with a phone and if you change phones you need to re-pair the AirTag with the new phone.

I can't find this documented anywhere but I've changed phones two or three times since I've got my AirTags and found this behaviour repeatable. You don't need to re-pair all of your AirTags if you have several paired to your phone, just one.

To be totally clear - when I replace my phone I unpair and then re-pair one of my AirTags, and that stops any of my AirTags thinking they are orphaned.
 
Just as a datapoint, this has started happening to me this week. My husband has started getting alerts that an AirTag and My AirPods are moving with him when I'm with him. also once we were both sitting at home and one of my AirTags gave the "travelling with you" chime. I sometimes have another AirTag with me that he doesn't get alerted about, and I don't get alerted about his AirTag, but it's curious that it's just started happening. No new phone, no iOS update. Have tried signing out/in of iCloud and see if that does anything.
 
Same issue here, I have a wallet and backpack AirTag, whenever we meet up for dinner or whatever she always gets notifications, even though she's part of my iCloud family etc.

Stupid **** like this is what pisses me off about Apple these days....they used to be all about the user experience and attention to detail.

Apple clearly knows the tags are traveling with me before we meet up, and Apple knows she's part of my family so why the hell would these go off.
 
I resolved my issue by removing all my AirTags from my account and adding them again.

Now my husband's AirTags are pinging on my phone because they're moving with me...
 
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