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A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

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672 points dmd | 8 comments | 18 Dec 24 18:17 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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jmull ◴[19 Dec 24 19:42 UTC] No.42465013[source]▶
I know this is useful (for something), but I'm stuck on the plot holes in the motivating story...

Why didn't they replace the battery when the app complained?

How long would a thief really keep the AirTag anyway?

If the thief did keep the AirTag and you tracked them down, then what? A confrontation has a fairly high chance to have a worse result than losing some equipment. You could try to get the police to do it, but that's going to take more time, during which the thief is even more likely to ditch the AirTag.

Anyway, you're really swimming upstream trying to think of aigtags as an antitheft device. They're really for something lost, not stolen. Generally, they are specifically designed to not work well in adversarial situations.

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unsnap_biceps ◴[19 Dec 24 20:19 UTC] No.42465303[source]▶
It only complains once that the battery is low and never again, I've run into a dead battery when searching for an AirTag multiple times.
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jakespencer ◴[19 Dec 24 20:36 UTC] No.42465467[source]▶
This has not been my experience. I’ve had multiple AirTags notify me multiple times over a period of months that I needed to change the batteries.
replies(1): >>42465625 #
unsnap_biceps ◴[19 Dec 24 20:55 UTC] No.42465625[source]▶
So last week my keys AirTag was dead, and I checked my notifications and I only received one notification in October that it had a low battery, but to be fair, I don't know exactly when it died between October and last week.

Maybe my batteries die completely before the second notification triggers.

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1. dylan604 ◴[19 Dec 24 21:37 UTC] No.42465932[source]▶
Maybe they need an option for people like you called "smoke detector mode" where it starts to annoyingly beep once a minute.
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2. climb_stealth ◴[19 Dec 24 21:52 UTC] No.42466073[source]▶
Dear god please no. The kind of people who don't notice empty batteries also don't notice the annoying beeps. But I do.

Apartment living can be hell when there are neighbours who don't replace their smoke detector batteries. I can't fathom how people can sleep through this loud annoying chirp every thirty seconds. I certainly find it hard and my apartment is far enough away that it's hard to determine where exactly the chirp is coming from.

The thought of smoke-detector like beeping of airtags all over the place gives me the worst kind of creeps. Please don't give them ideas! Please!

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3. dylan604 ◴[19 Dec 24 22:08 UTC] No.42466214[source]▶
That's easy to fix. Just carry a pocket full of 2032s, and offer to swap out the beeping tags near you. For a small nominal fee, of course. Or just for free for the sake of humanity or just your own sanity.
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4. unsnap_biceps ◴[20 Dec 24 01:11 UTC] No.42467383[source]▶
I take ownership of the fact that I didn't change the battery when prompted. I only stated that in my experience it's a single notification vs the other folks saying they get notified multiple times.
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5. climb_stealth ◴[20 Dec 24 01:34 UTC] No.42467480{3}[source]▶
Haha, sure. Or full vigilante style
6. crottypeter ◴[20 Dec 24 01:39 UTC] No.42467500[source]▶
Maybe you only get a second notification if you dismiss the first?
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7. dylan604 ◴[20 Dec 24 01:47 UTC] No.42467533[source]▶
maybe the "like you" was a little more pointed than intended but it was meant more as the royal you.
8. unsnap_biceps ◴[20 Dec 24 02:45 UTC] No.42467806{3}[source]▶
That's a fair point. I'll try to remember to dismiss next time and see.