alt Hacker NewsApple introduces new AirTag with longer range and improved findability
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Metromile insurance — now Lemonade — had a fantastic feature going to way back in 2015 AFAIR, that allowed you to track your car to bill you per mile. As a bonus they gave you location tracking history. This feature helped me nail down my olden beater which the thief stole not knowing what was in the ODB.
The car was used to commit a crime and the location tracking history was used by the detective at the local PD to nail a professional ring with additional evidence targeting certain cars. The car was totaled but I got insurance money back.
Metromile's app now only shows you your car's live location — that too only after several years of the acquisition — but no location history, which is sad. I _think_ law enforcement can actually ask them with warrants and they would have to give that data if they have it. Don't say you delete the data because of privacy, because we all know its not true: let me store the data in my phone. (Google already does this with its location history tool in maps) Pretty please?
To Metromile: You are already using a location stack from apple/google's Location Provider with a permission modal in the app. Its like nothing in LoC with a local storage and an opt in/out setting.
> The new AirTag is designed with the environment in mind, with 85 percent recycled plastic in the enclosure, 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100 percent recycled gold plating in all Apple-designed printed circuit boards. The paper packaging is 100 percent fiber-based and can be easily recycled.
I'm no material scientist, but this seems pretty impressive to me that Apple's economy of scale can pull this off, and upgrade the device capabilities, for less than $30 USD.
Unfortunately the anti-stalking features have made Airtag mostly useless for theft prevention. You have less than an hour to retrieve your item before the tag alerts the thief they are being tracked. I've seen it trigger as quickly as 30 minutes.
It sounds like the external dimensions are going to be exactly the same or nearly so. I'm hoping the battery compartment is also identical so that third-party mounting and extended battery packs continue to work.
I recently picked up a few of these extended battery packs and it would be nice to eventually upgrade the AirTag if the extended range turns out to be meaningful. They're pretty neat, you remove the battery cover completely and only insert the half of the AirTag with the electronics and radio.
Probably one of the best products apple has made of late: relatively affordable, good ux, user replaceable batteries. Glad to see this iteration hasn't made it worse.
For anyone outside the U.S where most likely people around you will have Android devices and not iPhones, you are better off ordering trackers that are compatible with Google Find My Device
They're cheaper and allows third parties, plus the network is stronger.
What's the non-apple solution for someone who runs a homenas with their own maps server, home assistant, self hosted website? Any one had luck with a better solution that is more efficient with this closed we-will-make-you-fork-999$-per-year and wall garden your data behemoth.
What airtags need is a theft mode, where anyone carrying the airtag is not alerted, but the location can be retrieved by an approved local authority after being voluntarily surrendered by the owner.
> And an upgraded Bluetooth chip expands the range at which items can be located.
It's interesting they don't give a stat on how much the range has increased by ... especially given they give stats for everything else.
my parents live in Russia and my grandma has alzheimer's, so as a present "for her" I bought an airtag - so in case my mom loses grandma in a crowd she can be found.
Little did I know, GPS jammers around the city make my grandma appear 50km away.
Not Apple's fault of course.
I wish they made airtags in different form factors.
I've gotten into photography lately. I'd love to slip an airtag into more places - ideally within the housing of my camera bodies themselves. But, there's not really any room to put an airtag on or in a camera given the current airtag form factor.
You can get camera cages with secret compartments for airtags. And lens caps which take an airtag. But they take up a lot of space, and end up adding a lot of bulk to the camera itself. I wish Apple opened airtags up to 3rd party manufacturers who could buy the (tiny) circuit board directly, so they could hide it in their products better.
I'm curious whether the improved range is actually going to make the product worse for my particular use case, which is being alerted when I've left my bag somewhere (this has happened to me at least 5 times over the years). My understanding is that the item left behind notifications are triggered when your phone loses contact with the AirTag, so increased range can potentially take me from being notified as I step off the train to being notified as I leave the station and the train has departed.
So they made it impossible to remove speaker, destroying its usability as a theft tracking device. One could add an airtag with a removed speaker on a bike/scooter/car and then localize it in case of theft. With the new airtag any thief will be quickly notified they are tracked.
Great to hear but it's still the same shape. I really want a 'credit card' shaped version I can slide into my wallet.
For whatever it's worth I have a personal counter-story to airtag usefulness. Not to get into the debate of indoor vs outdoor cats, we had a cat a few years ago that liked to roam around outside and one time it got spooked and disappeared for two weeks. It came back all skinny and hurt and after that we bought an air tag collar for peace of mind. The airtag worked just fine for a few months until the cat disappeared again. That very day the airtag stopped working so when we actually need it, the signal was permanently lost. We never found out why. I could imagine perhaps a car hit it or a coyote ate it, but there's certainly edge cases where an airtag would fail immediately. Battery life is highly unlikely to be the culprit in my opinion as it was fairly new, working recently before that day and the timing was too perfect.
Awesome.
Time for me to buy my first iPhone then.
Sincerely, f** Google. I've been android user since I had to abandon Symbian, and their impotence in this one thing is staggering.
> Maintaining the same form factor as the original, the new AirTag is compatible with all existing AirTag accessories
I'm glad this appears to have been a focal point of the design.
> Designed exclusively for tracking objects, and not people or pets, the new AirTag incorporates…
Interesting to call out that it’s not designed for pets. I know several people with AirTags on their pet collars.
Why everyone is so okay with wearing a tracking device? Usually there is a crowd who will bring NSA in every possible discussion, but apparently not for this worldwide functioning meter-precise tracking service?
I’m sporting a Life360, MoniMoto and AirTags on my moto. The Life360 seemed to have better range—until it just went offline. The AirTag is still working, though.
So I’m stoked to hear about a new tag with greater range.
I'm kind of the opposite use case: I own four AirTags, keep them in different bags and suitcases, and I've literally never needed them. I don't lose any luggage or bags, so most of the time they just sit there quietly burning those CR2032s. For me they've ended up feeling more like they are preventing me from anxiety than doing something that actually changes my life day to day...
apple should have an anti-theft mode. Where you can't track it, but they can give access to local law enforcement to track it, and therefore wont go into stalker mode / alerting people about it.
If one is in close proximity to the device (say bluetooth), one can take it out of this mode and return it to normal usage.
AirTags are such a killer feature.
I have multiple in places like my bike, wallet and so on.
They have paid themselves so many times over and over.
"the new AirTag is 50 percent louder than the previous generation, enabling users to hear their AirTag from up to 2x farther than before"
Can that really be true?
Is this… skeuomorphism in an Apple UI? In 2026?
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/2026/01/apple-introduc...
I have ADHD – which is hardly uncommon in this economy – and the improvements to finding AirPods Pro with Find My have been a godsend. I use it almost every day. I've lost so many airpods in the past. I hope we see the same improvements to air tags.
ps, Apple is driving me nuts with their branding. With is AirPods one word and Find My two words?
I tried AirTags once. It beeped non stop on my own possessions. I don’t understand how anyone uses these things.
I get the optics about tracking people...
But man that's one of my best use cases, toss a tag in my kid's pocket when we are somewhere busy. I used one on my older in-law who tended to wander.
They work great for that.
And you have to update to the new shitty ios.... I'd rather loose my stuff then.
"With its updated internal design, the new AirTag is 50 percent louder than the previous generation, enabling users to hear their AirTag from up to 2x farther than before."
Curious about getting 2x the distance from 1.5x the "loudness", I would have thought the inverse? Maybe there is nuance to this though.
They don't seem to get that if it costs less people will buy more of them. I'm not doing to spend $29 to track a $100 item.
does this update also enable precision finding from the watch? would this start working with the previous generation of airtags as well (currently you can use precision finding from your iphone, but not from the watch)
Would privatizing police help?
I have requested theft a number of times, even presented video footage. I was surprised they ask you fill out bureaucratic paperwork and at the end they do nothing, after all these taxes we pay in Europe.
I read they are popular with drug distributors. They ship their merch world wide using various hidden channels and couriers and this helps keep track of the merch.
I read this literally just after I ordered 4 AirTags. Great.
I was really hoping for a new form factor or new killer features. Its too bad that the general public can't behave themselves with simple tech like this
I have an older AirTag, which cannot be seen by my iPhone any more but gives a slight beep whenever it gets shaken. Anyone ever heard of the behavior?
The new AirTag requires a compatible iPhone with iOS 26 or later, or iPad with iPadOS 26 or later.
Oh come the fuck ON. I'm not installing your silly fuzzy UI, Apple. Get over it.
Apple AirTag is one of those interesting products that you don’t think you need until you use it. An Apple thing that just works as advertised and is cheap enough that you can keep picking them up at Airports, without the guilty feeling that usually comes with buying high-priced Apple products, such as the Polishing Cloth. And when you order it online, the nice engravings are fun for my daughters. They like it when it is pinged, finding their toys and bags, and it is worth the price tag.
I had to put in a few of my daughter’s pencil pouches and some toys; they are cheaper than the AirTags and, financially, make no sense to lose an AirTag that costs more than the items being tracked. But hey, daughter is happy, and that covers up for the cost.
The key ring costing more than the AirTag itself is wild
How long do they last?
> and a louder speaker
That's great, but could they do something about what plays on the speaker? It's all pretty in that Apple sort of way, but the fact that its volume goes up and down makes it harder to find. Y'know, exactly the one thing you're trying to do with it?
Finally! Can‘t wait to tinker with one and figure out how to disable the new tamper peotected speaker.
Nice, does it support Android yet?
AirTags don't help if the police are understaffed and totally unconcerned.
ProTip: Avoid Austin. Property theft everywhere and the cops don't care at all.
God damn it. I just got a four pack.
But the real question is... is the speaker still glued on?
Great that they are improving a relatively low profile product. I imagine that the warning of using AirTag on pets is just for regulatory purposes?
Airtag is the reason of why I stil have my favourite hand luggage.
I had just sat down on the train from Zurich to Basel. Suddenly, someone sat down in front of me. He looked suspicious, but I didn't pay much attention. Just before the train departed, he picked up what I thought were his belongings and left.
Twenty minutes later, already on the way to Basel, I looked toward where I had left my suitcase. It was gone. That was when I realized that the person who had sat in front of me was a thief.
However, he hadn't counted on the fact that I have an AirTag in every backpack and suitcase.
So I was able to see where the thief was and where he was moving. I considered going to retrieve my suitcase myself, but while traveling back to Zurich, I called the Zurich Police and, as the thief kept moving, I told them where he was.
Twenty minutes later I received a call from the police informing me that they had found my suitcase with my belongings, matching the description I had given.
But also the thief and his accomplice.