What Are The Things You Can Track With Apple’s Air Tag?

Air Tag was launched by Apple and is now fast becoming popular among Apple users. Air Tag is a tracking device designed to act as a key finder helping people find personal objects (e.g. keys, bags, apparel, small electronic devices, and vehicles). To locate lost items, Air Tag’s leverage Apple’s crowdsourced Find My network, estimated to consist of approximately one billion devices worldwide that detect and anonymously report emitted Bluetooth signals. Air Tags are compatible with any iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch device capable of running iOS/iPad 14.5 or later. Using the built-in U1 chip on iPhone 11 or later (excluding iPhone SE 2nd generation), users can more precisely locate items using UWB (ultra-wideband) technology.

Air Tags are added and managed in the ‌Find My‌ app under the “Items” tab that Apple introduced in iOS 14.3. Like other Apple devices, each Air Tag is displayed on a map in the ‌Find My‌ app so you can see its location. Air Tags connect to your iOS and macOS devices over Bluetooth.

What Are The Things You Can Track With Apple’s Air Tag?

1. The Keys

Do you remember how often you have misplaced your keys? Air Tags are designed to track keys, especially using the accessories that Apple is selling in their stores, and that third parties are selling as well. Key rings aren’t cheap, of course. An Apple leather key ring costs $35, Apple sells a Belkin key ring made of some sort of unspecified plastic for $13, and third party companies are already selling their versions for even less. Since you probably already have a key ring, it won’t be much of a change to have a trackable key fob, and you may find that it saves you time.

Your wallet, purse, or backpack. These are items that you may want to track, and you can slip a bare AirTag into any of them, but if you use a wallet that you stick in your back pocket, the 8mm AirTag may be a bit thick. To have an idea of what 8mm is, it’s about the thickness of an iPhone 11 or 12.

2. Luggage

It can be useful to track your luggage, when you return to traveling, because lost luggage can be a real headache. Also at $29 each, or four for $99, that’s not a high price to pay to keep track of your luggage. However, bear in mind that you can only use 16 Air Tags with a single Apple ID, so if you want to protect luggage for your entire family, plus keys, purses, etc., you may need to share the Air Tags among the Apple IDs in your family. Apple sells both leather and polyurethane luggage tags ($39 and $29 respectively), and you can even buy a Hermès luggage tag. This model so expensive that you could buy an iPhone SE, an iPad (8th generation), an iPad mini, AirPods Pro, or four HomePod minis for less than it’s $449 price.

Also you can track musical instrument cases. With most cases, you’ll be able to hide the Air Tag, and if it goes missing, you’ll really be grateful to be able to track it down, especially if you have a gig about to start soon.

Also it can track your camera bag or laptop bag. If you have an Apple laptop, it’s already got Find My, so you can track that, but if the battery runs out, or if it’s shut off, an Air Tag may help you find it. Air Tag batteries last about a year.

If you’re a professional – a plumber, electrician, or you practice another profession where you have expensive tools – you may want to keep an Air Tag in the bottom of your toolbox. Put an Air Tag on your drill or saw, or in your toolbox.

Besides this if you have a Kindle, a portable game device, or a GoPro camera, you can slip an Air Tag into any device’s case, if there’s enough room, to find it when you’ve forgotten where you last used it. For other devices, you can use one of the loop Air Tag holders to lock it. Also if you like to go birding, and have expensive binoculars, and are prone to forgetting them, you might want to tag them with an Air Tag, using one of the available accessories.

3. Track Bicycle and Cars

You can track bicycle, skateboard, or scooter. It’s easy to hide an AirTag under the seat of your bicycle, our stick one under your skateboard or scooter. Apple hasn’t released a stick-on accessory, which Tile, the main competitor in this market, offers. That would make it easier to stick an AirTag anywhere. Expect third-parties to do this soon, or just get some sturdy double-stick tape or duct tape.

Many cars have built-in GPS trackers, so this would be redundant, but it could be a good idea if you often forget where you park. Just walk up and down a parking lot, with the Find My app active on your phone, and you’ll find your car.

You could tape an Air Tag to a remote that you lose often, but it would be a bit clunky; remember, it’s 8mm thick. It’s a shame that the new Siri remote, for the Apple TV, doesn’t use FindMy.

Also you can track umbrella, your pets too. As with pets, Apple doesn’t recommend this, but instead recommends you buy your kids an Apple Watch, which is much better for tracking people, though if you just want to keep track of your child when you’re at the playground, an AirTag can help.

4. Other Things To Track

If you have a drone, you know it gives some information about its location, but it’s not precise. If you use that information to get an idea of where it is, you can then zero in on it with an AirTag. However, an AirTag alone weighs 11g, and with something to hold the AirTag, the weight might be too much for a drone.

Find your kid’s favorite toys, often stuffed animals, as it’s easy to misplace them or leave them behind when you’re out. Slip one inside the toy, stitch it up, and you might save some tears.

Your coat or jacket. Slip one in a pocket to be able to find it if you forget it or misplace it.

If an AirTag is lost or stolen, the ‌Find My‌ network can help you find it. The ‌Find My‌ Network takes advantage of hundreds of millions of iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices to help you locate an AirTag, with the AirTag showing up on a map when it is located by someone else’s device.

In Lost Mode, an AirTag will automatically send out a notification when it’s detected by someone in the ‌Find My‌ network, and you can add your contact info so someone who finds your item can get in touch with you.

Apple is able to regularly update the AirTags firmware and has done so several times since the AirTags launched.