Air Tags am I doing something wrong?

[gotoPzero]

We are about to head off on a long trip to South America.
Thought it would be a good idea to invest in 4 airtags for our bags.

I have been testing them for a while, but its hit and miss. I put one in my car and my wife says she can see where I am and it works fairly well only a couple of minutes delay I would say.

However she has gone for a walk twice and taken an air tag and it just shows her at home? If I try and use the "play sound" button it just says "air tag not reachable".

My mrs has an iphone 10 which is with her, is there something on the settings on her phone thats wrong?

Also, my phone is an Android phone yet it worked fine when I was in the car so I assume connecting to other iphones?

Any tips?

[Aunty Pasty]

IIRC I think it relies on it's proximity to other iPhones to triangulate its position and those other iPhones also need to have location services enabled and be above a certain spec. Maybe if she took a walk into town or somewhere busier it may work better.

[tight fart]

My daughter put one on the dog’s collar that then fell off, we can see roughly where it is but we’ve never been able to find it.

[eeLee]

Going for a walk with the AirTag and no iPhone means you have to go where iPhones might be to get a location. Simple

[gotoPzero]

eeLee said:

Going for a walk with the AirTag and no iPhone means you have to go where iPhones might be to get a location. Simple

Wife has an iphone though.

So surely it just connects to that?

I am checking the location on our ipad.

Also yesterday went for a walk with family so there were several iphones but still did not show.

[eeLee]

I think the tracking is more done with other iPhones. It shows up in Find My on her phone, correct?

[gotoPzero]

Yep showing in her phone.

Its weird when I took one out in my car it worked.

Perhaps its just that one thats maybe faulty? I will have to try it next time I go out.

[Captain_Morgan]

Not unusual Tom Scott has a couple of vids about how poor they are for real-time tracking

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GmC05wOc5Dw

[gregs656]

There are a number of anti-stalking features which might be preventing real time tracking of your wife on a walk.

[Durzel]

I must admit I've been a bit naive about this, assuming that if we bought some AirTags for our cats that we'd be abe to track them if they got lost in a nearby field. From the sounds of it though if there's no iPhones nearby, it basically wouldn't lead us to them?

[gotoPzero]

OK so did another test today, I think its just down to not having enough phones nearby when she is on a walk and I think it simply wont work off just one.

I have a suspicion it wont update if there is just one phone as a privacy thing. It seems to work ok in a more crowded area and you are not moving. If you are moving its a bit more of an issue.

Will see how it works with our bags!!

[Gary C]

gotoPzero said:

Will see how it works with our bags!!

Good luck

We landed at Nairobi once and another passenger took my wife's bag out of the airport.

Nightmare.

[gotoPzero]

I get that but my wife has the tag added to her phone, and the tag is with her. It seems to me that it needs more than 1 phone