What are the limitations to AirTag location reports?

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Level 2

154 points

What are the limitations to AirTag location reports?

I have seen some quite old discussions about AirTag data not being updated regularly, and some explanations including one which essentially says if there aren't any iPhones around, the AirTag can't communicate with Apple's servers. Is this right? I am looking for a reason for some of my AirTag information being hours and even sometimes more than a day late. This happens often with my car, which travels around in a busy urban environment, probably a rich source of wifi and Bluetooth connections.

If I can't get my AirTags to update frequently, maybe there's an alternative method of tracking the location of an object.

Can anyone clarify how it works and what I should expect?

AirTag

Posted on Jan 16, 2025 4:34 AM

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Answer 1

Rudegar

Level 10

175,158 points

Jan 16, 2025 5:08 AM in response to Living Fossil

yes without an iphone with bluetooth enabled and a internet connection then the airtag is dead in the water

that way they work is, that their only means of communication is bluetooth, and they do not have any sort of gps abilities, so they work by if there is an iphone which meets those requirements, the airtag take the gps location of said iphone and get the iphone to send the location to apples servers.

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Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

153,396 points

Jan 16, 2025 8:58 AM in response to Living Fossil

The bottom line? If you want basically instantaneous location tracking, you should consider a device that relies on GPS, not Bluetooth. The tag does NOT know its location; it has no means to do so.

As mentioned already, the AirTag sends out a Bluetooth signal that only includes its ID. It is heavily dependent on the Apple Find My network, which consists of millions of iPhones. Any which, if within Bluetooth range, and has an active Internet connection, will relay that tag's ID along with the phone's GPS location, to the Apple servers.

As you can see, a number of things have to happen to get timely (iPhone) location updates on the Find My app on your phone ... so, yes, if someone steals your bike the tag will not be very helpful. To make matters worse, in that situation, the thief, if they have an Android or iPhone, would be notified of the tag's presence and disable it. These tags were not designed for theft prevention.

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Answer 3

Living Fossil Author

Level 2

154 points

Jan 16, 2025 6:06 AM in response to Rudegar

Thanks for that explanation. So AirTag location is totally useless in an isolated location, like say the ocean or the desert? That’s not my own situation, since I’m in a dense urban area, where I can’t understand why I’m not getting reliable frequency of updates. I mean, if someone steals my bike, telling me where it was two hours ago is not helpful.

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