I have several Tiles. Beyond helping to find where I’ve misplaced something in the house, I managed to lose my wallet once. I flagged it as missing on Tile and started waiting. I didn’t have any high expectations as it was the dead of Canadian winter and I expected the battery to have died completely out in the cold but no I got a ping a couple days later. A short search in the area and we found it.

I have also put tiles on my bicycles and luggage in case they ever get stolen but so far this has never happened.

I have a Tile on my keys, and can also ring my phone from it. The batteries have lasted years and have helped me find my keys in a parking lot, and at my house more than once.

👉👈

Meshtastic

Airtags have four modes:

1. Locate something nearby, using UWB.
2. Leave something behind. Get notified later, when phone detects loss of signal.
3. Lose something out and about. Mesh of Apple devices can detect via iBeacon/BLE and share location to Find My network.
4. Send device a reverse signal via Find My network, to make a beep sound.

I have them on my keyfob, in my backpack and luggage, and we put one on the cat’s collar in case it runs away. We’ve had lots of reports of missing cats and coyote sightings.

For the nearby feature to work, you have to be reasonably close. Doesn’t work too well if on another floor, or you’re inside and the item is outside, or in a closed metal vehicle. Lots of wandering around until it finds a thin signal. Has never worked for me.

For leaving something behind, it does send a signal, but it could be minutes later. Also, lots and lots of false positives. Tells me my backpack was left behind when it’s literally on the passenger seat next to me. Used to be worse. Each time I left home without the backpack, it pinged. At least they fixed it so you can geofence home.

For the mesh signal, you need to be in an area with a few Apple devices going by – and this is important – during the scanning period for beacons. If any of those are not true, you won’t get notified, and the remote make-noise feature won’t work either.

Our cat ran out once, late at night, so not many people were walking or driving around. We started scanning. Nothing inside or outside. I jumped in the car and drove around the neighborhood, hoping to pick up a ping. Nothing. After 30m driving around, came back. Saw a pair of eyes under a car right in front of the house. Possible she wandered and came back, but cat is also a notorious chickenshit. Likely was there the whole time. No signal, no notification, no beep even though we looked out there multiple times.

Still keep the AirTags around and change the batteries, sunk costs and all. But I’ve sort of lost my faith in the tech.

FWIW, used to have Bluetooth-based Tiles and Ecobees. Sorry, way worse. Which is why I went with AirTags and UWB. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I’m in the Android ecosystem and I bought some compatible with the Google Find My network.

I use them on my keys, inside my kids backpack (both in elementary school), one hidden inside my car, a spare that I put inside the bag I use that day when commuting (laptop bag, backpack, luggage) and another one attached to my dog’s collar.

The last one ended up being useful a couple of times, I couldn’t find my dog in the house and he was sleeping under our bed, and another time he was sleeping on a white blanket the kids left bunched up on the floor and he was basically invisible on it (he’s all white) 🤣

The closest I’ve used is Find My Phone and the chips in my dogs.

I was super interested in these airtag things for my dogs because the chip they put in them at the vet isn’t real-time. It’s basically just a barcode that gets scanned by a vet/pound. But finding out they are not pinpoint accurate, made me lose intetest. Finding out how expensive they are made me lose even more lol.

I have ADHD; Samsung SmartTags are a lifesaver. I attach them to my most frequently used (and therefore most lost) things.

I won an airtag for free in a work raffle a few years back. Wife is the one into the apple ecosystem, and she uses it to help find her keys every once in while.

If we ever traveled by plane, I’d pick up some for our luggage, and we’ve joked about strapping one on our toddler.

Apple in my wallet has saved my butt 5 times and counting.

The cons are that it isn’t good for real time tracking, which I also view as a plus. Highly dependent on a phone having seen the signal and passing along the location. You’ll know your keys are at the pub 14 minutes ago.

It’s not till you can get close enough that more advanced AirTag features turn on. Like a real time compass that can lead you directly to it. Or make it beep.

I prefer not broadcasting my and my things location 24/7

My mother has Alzheimer’s and everything important has a tracker in it. Although as the disease progressed, we had to take away most of her important things, like wallet and keys. We still have one on the remote control, though.

I’m in the apple ecosystem so I’ve got AirTags.

I use them for:

• Vehicles - so I can find it if I go to a big venue / in case it gets stolen
• Pets - we recently had a cat in our family run away. Turns out they do that if they know they’re going to pass away soon, so we don’t really have closure / can give them a proper burial
• Checked luggage while travelling - If it gets lost, we can tell the airline which airport it’s at to help them find it

I have the samsung ones, they are great except they only work with an internet connection. My greatest fear of switching to graphene os is not being able to use them any more, especially the AR camera feature where it shows you where the tag is has helped me a tonne at night when people are sleeping and I can’t let my wallet or keys ring.

I have an airtag in my car, and one in my backpack.

I don’t know what valuable things I would find with an airtag, but it is nice to keep track of my car and backpack

Apple airtags I found annoying and on a few rare occasions they did not work properly …
Airtag clones, the cheap ones, never worked for me, go with originals or the more expensive clones.

The Samsung tags on the other hand have been solid and functional for me, without hassles.

I use the tags to find car keys (on rare occasions they fall from my pocket in some grass for example) they worked for luggage as well as finding a car and bike in parking areas.

For constant tracking in general I am not impressed with none of them