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A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

(www.elevationlab.com)
673 points dmd | 1 comments | 18 Dec 24 18:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.199s | source
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drdaeman ◴[19 Dec 24 19:14 UTC] 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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dmajor2 ◴[19 Dec 24 19:21 UTC] No.42464811[source]▶
No, they have been rendered useless for that purpose through software updates because of the almost 100% overlap of the use cases of 1) stalking someone 2) and tracking a thief.
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ronsor ◴[19 Dec 24 19:33 UTC] No.42464919[source]▶
Wait until they realize the almost 100% overlap between the camera's use cases of 1) spying on people and 2) recording nature
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post-it ◴[19 Dec 24 19:46 UTC] No.42465038[source]▶
Nature cameras are relatively hard to conceal (from humans), whereas AirTags are very easy to conceal.
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theshrike79 ◴[19 Dec 24 21:25 UTC] No.42465824[source]▶
They are also very bad for tracking compared to what you can get on Aliexpress/eBay/Amazon (which are the same tbh).

For about the same price you can get a device with a SIM card and GPS/GLONASS and _zero_ ways to detect it.

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post-it ◴[20 Dec 24 00:24 UTC] No.42467167[source]▶
What's the battery life on that though? The appeal of AirTags is that they last a year and work anywhere that has an iPhone nearby.
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1. theshrike79 ◴[20 Dec 24 06:13 UTC] No.42468718[source]▶
Depends on the device. Some are active all the time, some can sleep and only wake up to get their position fix every hour or so. It's not exactly rocket science to adjust the programming.

And if you're stalking someone for a year, you'll have ample options to swap the device to a new one with a fresh battery.