Recently, I travelled to the USA and made one small mistake. Well, small for me – failed to transfer an AirTag over from one of my other bags.
Trust me. I make other mistakes.
Over the past few years, I’ve found keeping an item tracker is a valuable thing, with it saving my bacon on more than one occasion. That could be a Tile or one of Apple’s AirTags. In Hamburg, it helped me find my keys when I accidentally packed them in my suitcase, find which belt a bag was sat on at Chicago O’Hare, or where my luggage is at Heathrow Airport.
Both have strengths and weaknesses – I find Tiles to be a lot louder than AirTags; however, the Ultra-Wideband chip in the AirTag allows for precision finding.
Whilst British Airways has finally sped up their luggage delivery at Terminal 5 (and other terminals are normally reasonably fast), it’s still good to track the journey of my luggage.
Hence why I try to put an AirTag in my bag.
Normally, I saw the tags around between bags – but I was in a rush to leave the UK, and forgot to transplant them from one of my suitcases to another. Admittedly, I only found this out when I arrived in Chicago.
As such, I needed to get some AirTags. That’s easy in Chicago, as there are plenty of places that retain Apple products. I chose the small fruit stand on North Michigan Avenue, as it was the closest to where I was at that moment.
Fruit stand = Apple Store.
Once there, it was a matter of exchanging currency for AirTags. This was $29.99+tax ($31.97)… or about £24.57 at the time of purchase (as I paid on Amex). With that in hand, it went with the rest of my items until I arrived back at the Hyatt.
Setting them up is simple enough – extract an AirTag from the box…
Unwrap…
Reveal your secrets!
The extracted AirTag.
And pull the plastic out to activate.
Once activated, if your iPhone/iPad is nearby, it will go through its activation sequence.
From here, you just need to give it a name and set up what it is.
Any comments about my emoji use will be taken down and noted.
Once the AirTag activates, you’ll get the important regulatory information that governs the use of the AirTag. Using an AirTag for bad things, like stalking or tracking people without consent, is not a good use of technology.
Read the T&Cs. Don’t be a nasty person when using them. That includes you, Karen, who is tracking your coworkers with them.
Not ideal – but better than nothing. And provided the luggage handling agents and TSA don’t get too inquisitive in the bags, they should make it home safely (providing BA delivers the baggage).
From there, I could track my luggage on my journey. This is within the “Find My” app on your iPhone/iPad, with the AirTags communicating their locations with notifications when your items get out of range of the phone.
And to put it simply, thanks to the way they work (using the FindMy network that detects and anonymously reports emitted Bluetooth signals), it’s easy to track items.
And if the bags don’t, you can share data about them.
Over the past couple of years, Airlines have been jumping on Apple’s Share Item Location function to privately and securely share the location of their AirTags or Find My network accessories with baggage service teams to aid in finding lost items.
In order to share the location of their AirTags or Find My network accessories with the airline, customers first generate a Share Item Location link in the Find My app on their Apple device and then simply share that link via email directly with the baggage services team at their arrival airport.
The link is then added to the customer’s missing/delayed baggage file from which then aids in the process of marrying lost bag and person.
For privacy and security, location sharing will automatically end as soon as a customer is reunited with their bag, or it can be stopped by the customer at any time, and will automatically expire after seven days.
There are downsides, however…
The first big downside is you must be in the Apple ecosystem to take advantage of them – and whilst I’m mostly an Apple user, there are times when I reach for an Android or Windows-based device.
Another downside (and if you travel with family or are tracking lots of things), you can only track 16 items per Apple ID.
And the final thing – the thing that drives me potty is the lack of an integrated loop on the tag.
Why is that such an important thing? Try attaching one to a keyring or something that has an integrated loop or hook, which has a clear circular outline.
Yeah. That isn’t going to work, Chief.
Of course, you could buy the official Apple loop keyring accessory.
Let me laugh at you as you do, as I head to eBay.
Any other options?
I’ve covered Tile before on the blog, and I still love Tile for its interoperability with different platforms and ease of use. Samsung has its GalaxyTag tracker too, which is compatible with Galaxy devices only (smartphones, tablets) with Android OS 8 (O OS) or higher.
There’s also Chipolo, which is generating some buzz – although I can’t vouch for it, or the privacy policy it has.
And UGreen too.
Trackers help when Luggage Handlers don’t do their thing.
We’ve all had occasions when luggage hasn’t made it – be it to the right luggage belt or the right airport. And if you’re carrying important things (and with great respect, something of yours is of value to you – it doesn’t matter how much it costs), having a little security knowing where your item is in the world.
Whilst there have been some moans from aviation circles that these contain lithium batteries and must be contained, ICAO has cleared them to be carried in hold luggage.
They’re part of my standard travel kit these days – having the reassurance of knowing where certain items are (baggage, wallet and keys) and being able to find them without too much panic.
Just don’t use them for evil. And make sure you change their batteries once a year.
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