alt Hacker NewsUnfortunately 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.
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I developed a device that turns an Airtag on and off at specific intervals (roughly 80% off 20% on). While the AirTag is off, it can’t be detected, and when it turns on again, you can locate it and with it your stolen item: https://undetectag.com I'm about to order the new version to check whether it works on it too
> Unfortunately the anti-stalking features have made Airtag mostly useless for theft prevention.
While this is true, Airtags are not designed for theft prevention, and never have been. They're designed to locate lost items.
Apple should be applauded for making the only tracking tags with literally any kind of anti-stalking features at all.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Initially they didn’t have it, people complained, now they do, and people still complain.
Can it alert of my item being moved? Because it seems quite useless for the bicycle example in their screenshot.
My Samsung SmartTag gives me a notification if the bike changes position and I'm not nearby. Actually giving me a chance to track it down.
I disable the speaker in the ones I attach to luggage. (For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vAQNedIa0o )
How useful is a GPS position for theft prevention? IME cops are not interested in doing more than filing a report after a theft, even if you have a live GPS location of the item for them. Do you try and go get it yourself?
Interesting, I hadn't considered theft recovery to be a use case for Airtags before. I've only used them for "where the hell did that X go".
In addition to this, AirTag also makes a sound when on the move.
This is also quite ridiculous, as it literally gives away that there is an AirTag there. I have seen people removing the speaker to eliminate this flaw.
How would airtags work as theft prevention? Airtags only enter the equation once something has already been stolen.
What happens after that? It goes dark? Or it just alerts the thief (stalker victim)?
It is morally wrong to stalk the thieves.
To me, the bigger problem is the lack of ability for Android phones to register an AirTag as recognized. They've never done anything to address the problem of "drive your wife's car and her AirTag is beeping at you and your Android phone is beeping at you and there's no way to tell either one to stop".