←back to thread

A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

(www.elevationlab.com)
673 points dmd | 1 comments | 18 Dec 24 18:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
Show context
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.

replies(28): >>42465128 #>>42465202 #>>42465292 #>>42465303 #>>42465460 #>>42465554 #>>42465750 #>>42465858 #>>42466486 #>>42466585 #>>42466656 #>>42466744 #>>42466798 #>>42466905 #>>42467422 #>>42467653 #>>42467777 #>>42468238 #>>42468266 #>>42469043 #>>42469231 #>>42469724 #>>42470989 #>>42471280 #>>42472799 #>>42472809 #>>42477976 #>>42481533 #
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.
replies(2): >>42465467 #>>42466660 #
0898 ◴[19 Dec 24 23:04 UTC] No.42466660[source]▶
I read somewhere that the AirTag doesn’t actually know whether it’s low on battery or not. The alert is just triggered after a preprogrammed time.
replies(2): >>42467696 #>>42479352 #
1. selcuka ◴[20 Dec 24 02:23 UTC] No.42467696[source]▶
This is easy to test. Just remove the battery after the warning, then put it back and check if it complains rightaway.