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A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

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673 points dmd | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.623s | source
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drdaeman ◴[] No.42464753[source]
Are AirTags actually useful for anti-theft purposes?

I threw one in the trunk of my car (just in case - I ordered a 4-pack and I had a spare one), and every single time I drive somewhere it chirps loudly when I'm exiting my driveway, making its presence immediately obvious without any delays, and despite my phone being with me in the car.

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carlgreene ◴[] No.42464809[source]
Yes, but only if you remove the speaker which is well documented on YouTube
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kube-system ◴[] No.42464834[source]
Even if you do that they will still notify a thief with a notification on their iPhone.
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omgwtfbyobbq ◴[] No.42464976[source]
I think that's ok though, right?

As long as you do a good job placing/hiding it, the thief can't easily find and remove/disable without the speaker.

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kube-system ◴[] No.42465119[source]
How big is your item and how hard is it to search? If you know a bag has an airtag in it, it won't take that long to find.
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nucleardog ◴[] No.42465862[source]
If you get a bit creative you can definitely hide it well enough that "removing the air tag" is no longer the weak point in the plan.

I've got a Pelican 1510 that has a suitcase-style pop up handle and wheels on it. It's just screwed on there. I took the screws out, took it off, filed the sides of the air tag down slightly so I could fit it in a little cranny and then held it in place with some black tape so it's hard to see. Even if you use an iPhone to try and find it, it looks like it's hidden in the liner or something. But it takes tools and about 15 minutes to get it out _even if you know exactly where it is_ and how to get to it.

For one of my backpacks it actually came with an "air tag pocket" which is just a spot on an inside seam where there's a small gap you can slide the air tag in and it's held securely. I know it's there and it still takes me a while to find the thing to take it out.

For my other, I pretty much just get by on it having a bazillion little pockets and pouches and lot of random stuff in it. The air tag's nestled in there beside the flashlight that the TSA spent almost a half hour looking for after x-raying my bag repeatedly before finally telling me what they were looking for and me pulling it out for them.

I'm relatively certain I'd recover my bag with the air tag still in it. Whether or not the _valuables_ are still there is a different story.

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1. kube-system ◴[] No.42465926[source]
I have a feeling that thieves aren't going to spend any time fooling around if it isn't obvious, they'll dump the valuables out of the bag, and discard the bag.
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2. nucleardog ◴[] No.42466120[source]
Yeah that's kind of what I was alluding to in the last line. Was mostly responding to the idea that "it won't take that long to find".

With a bit of creativity they can be made pretty hard to find. At least hard enough that they're no longer the weak link at all.

The next step would be trying to make it more integral to whatever thing you're trying to track. If you disassemble an air tag and hide it inside your laptop, no thief is gonna pull out some precision screwdrivers and start trying to figure out where the hell it is. They're just going to get rid of it.

... Which I've thought about, but that's a level I don't think is really necessary for my own situation.

3. robocat ◴[] No.42467800[source]
Presumably quite often the bag and the airtag are worth more than the contents?!
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4. nucleardog ◴[] No.42468599[source]
In my case definitely not.

If I had nothing of value or only antifragile things I'd just throw everything in an old backpack. The reason I own the pelican case is for when I'm flying with $15k of computers, camera gear, etc. If anything I'd see the pelican case as _increasing_ my risk of it being stolen (who puts some clothes and some deodourant and a toothbrush in a $500 hard case?), but massively decreasing my risk of physical damage which is way more likely.

The air tag isn't even really in there for "sophisticated thieves stole my stuff" purposes so much as "airline made me gate check it and now they've lost it" purposes. Though I imagine the air tag and some basic padlocks would definitely help my chances with most unsophisticated thieves.