Airtag on bike

[ruppia]

I see this good video on youtube..


really interesting for us

Luca

 

[Trip Hazard]

I see this good video on youtube..


really interesting for us

Luca

Might have to get one of those. ?

 

[ruppia]

Might have to get one of those. ?

Me too..

 

[Dashfield]

Do you know how far the range is on an Airtag? Did it only work in the video because they kept relatively close?

If you’re bike is stolen and you don’t realise straight away it could be quite far away before you can track it.

 

[MH80]

It pings other iOS devices so you can track where ever there are apple devices. Only downside is after some hours the thieves, if they have iphones, they will be notified that there is an airtag close by

 

[lightning]

Great idea, anything that gives you even a small chance of recovering your bike has to be worth it.

 

[Mcharza]

It pings other iOS devices so you can track where ever there are apple devices. Only downside is after some hours the thieves, if they have iphones, they will be notified that there is an airtag close by

It only works with newer phone models, iPhone 11 and 12. So if these are not present in the area, the operation is uncertain

 

[MH80]

There are a lot of iPhone 11 users out there, so i wouldnt worry that much. I havent ordered airtags yet, but im going to and have them on my bikes.

 

[STATO]

It only works with newer phone models, iPhone 11 and 12. So if these are not present in the area, the operation is uncertain

They can be 'attached' to any apple account / iphone on 14.5, so Iphone 8 or above, 7 i think can run it maybe. You only need an 11/12 to get the 'your keys are over there' pointer feature. The main tracking feature though is that any iphone with a network connection, bluetooth and the find-my app (*almost all i devices) will 'talk' to the Airtag and share its gps location with your phone. Thats why the Airtag is such big news, an airtag in a city will almost never be out of the 100m radius of an iphone so you could watch the Airtag as it moves around. There is conflicting reports about how often iphones travelling with the lost Airtag (ie the theifs phone) will be notified about being near a tracked object, some say an hour, others 3 days.

 

[R120]

Would be interesting to repeat the experiment but wit the tag hidden within the bike somehow, e.g in battery compartment or seat tube, and see how this effects the reception - pretty sure any thief worth their salt is going to check under the saddle immediately

 

[Mcharza]

They can be 'attached' to any apple account / iphone on 14.5, so Iphone 8 or above, 7 i think can run it maybe. You only need an 11/12 to get the 'your keys are over there' pointer feature. The main tracking feature though is that any iphone with a network connection, bluetooth and the find-my app (*almost all i devices) will 'talk' to the Airtag and share its gps location with your phone. Thats why the Airtag is such big news, an airtag in a city will almost never be out of the 100m radius of an iphone so you could watch the Airtag as it moves around. There is conflicting reports about how often iphones travelling with the lost Airtag (ie the theifs phone) will be notified about being near a tracked object, some say an hour, others 3 days.

Thanks for the clarification, much easier to find

 

[Mcharza]

Would be interesting to repeat the experiment but wit the tag hidden within the bike somehow, e.g in battery compartment or seat tube, and see how this effects the reception - pretty sure any thief worth their salt is going to check under the saddle immediately

Behind the motor cover would be good. They are usually made of plastic. A basic junkie can hardly look from there.
Similar to other "thief protection systems", but Airtags are cheaper

 

[Beekeeper]

Surely a thief with an Apple phone can be alerted that a tag is nearby and quickly find it and destroy it or attach it to a passing truck?

 

[Trip Hazard]

Surely a thief with an Apple phone can be alerted that a tag is nearby and quickly find it and destroy it or attach it to a passing truck?

Some thieves are thick as mince though and won't have a clue ?

 

[Beekeeper]

Some thieves are thick as mince though and won't have a clue ?

fair comment LOL

I still think I’d hide mine inside the motor cover rather than under the seat.

 

[Zimmerframe]

fair comment LOL

I still think I’d hide mine inside the motor cover rather than under the seat.

It's still undetermined as to how long before apple will "notify" if an air tag is near. They have to because of legal obligations to stop people using them to track other people unknowingly - like Mrs Bee .. Off to see Mr Wasp for instance ..

It can be a couple of weeks though ! So hopefully you've found it by then ?! depending where it is .. Though if thieves know, they'll just keep any phones away from bikes they steal or wrap them in foil or something. Wouldn't exactly be hard to create a Faraday cage.

It's a nice idea for finding your keys round the house, but I wouldn't rely on it to find your bike.

 

[wildsau2]

The Airtag is designed for lost things not for stolen things. The integrated speaker beeps after a while when you set your airtag in lost mode.

 

[wildsau2]

It only works with newer phone models, iPhone 11 and 12. So if these are not present in the area, the operation is uncertain

thats not true. All iphones with bluetooth can track an airtag. iphone 11 and 12 can track airtags in rooms with prec. <1m when gps is not available. Even Androids can read the contents of airtags over NFC when they are in lost mode. With lost mode you can write a message direct on the airtag - usually your phone number. So, for lost things airtags are a nice solution.

 

[Beekeeper]

I’ve been using a tile tracker to locate my keys for years. Great device.

 

[Dashfield]

How about an Alter Lock instead? A lot more expensive but with the alarm it may stop your bike from being stolen in the first place.

It’s not exactly hidden though so I assume a thief would just remove it to stop tracking?

https://alterlock.net/en/how-it-works-v2

 

[Mcharza]

How about an Alter Lock instead? A lot more expensive but with the alarm it may stop your bike from being stolen in the first place.

It’s not exactly hidden though so I assume a thief would just remove it to stop tracking?

https://alterlock.net/en/how-it-works-v2

Is this something chinese crap?

 

[Jamze]

The integrated speaker beeps after a while when you set your airtag in lost mode.

You can remove the speaker coil in an AirTag to get around that feature. Takes 30 seconds.

 

[STATO]

Shane Miller (GP Lama) goes into good detail on AirTags, how they work, pitfalls and other stuff in this youtube video.

 

[Beezerk]

Would be interesting to repeat the experiment but wit the tag hidden within the bike somehow, e.g in battery compartment or seat tube, and see how this effects the reception - pretty sure any thief worth their salt is going to check under the saddle immediately

Plus any thief worth his salt would also steal Samsung phone ?

 

[SquireRides]

I predict a spate of stolen AirTags from under the seats of high-end eeebs.

 

[cole_inman]

Surely a thief with an Apple phone can be alerted that a tag is nearby and quickly find it and destroy it or attach it to a passing truck?

This is exactly why I went with Tile. I have Tile Pros stuck under the seat post of all my bikes. The range is actually pretty far, and in my city of 300k people there’s always at least 1k Tile app users for them to ping off of. Tile is expanding to use the Amazon Sidewalk network which means they’ll ping off of Ring cameras and Alexa devices like AirTags ping off of iOS devices.
The ”Unknown AirTag traveling with you” notification seems like it’s a requirement for third parties to use the FindMy Network. I contacted Chipolo about their tracker that uses the FindMy Network and they said that it would have this alert too, making it useless for anti-theft.
It annoys me to no end to see the fanboys on Reddit declare Tile dead because of AirTags. I bet the market for anti-theft is even bigger than the one for bumbling people who just lose random items (which is the only thing AirTags do, because of the notification)

 

[jimslade]

@cole_inman do you use premium service with your Tile Pro? AirTag without the warning would be the best, but maybe AirTag + Tile would be a good alternative. I've looked at purpose built trackers but it doesn't seem any of them have raving reviews. Although I'm obsessive about keeping my bike garaged and chained, there's always the chance it gets swiped anyway.

 

[cole_inman]

@cole_inman do you use premium service with your Tile Pro? AirTag without the warning would be the best, but maybe AirTag + Tile would be a good alternative. I've looked at purpose built trackers but it doesn't seem any of them have raving reviews. Although I'm obsessive about keeping my bike garaged and chained, there's always the chance it gets swiped anyway.

I do not use the premium, but the reimbursement if they can’t locate it could get me to but id need to read the fine print to see if it covers theft. I’d totally avoid AirTags or Chipolo One Spots because if a thief gets the notification about the Air Tag, then they’ll probably find your Tile too. Once Tile integrates the Amazon Sidewalk network I think it’ll work just as good as an AirTag in terms of how many devices can ping it to reveal its location.

 

[jimslade]

Y I realize the problem. Guess I was thinking airbag is more reliable and could give you a location straight away. Might give away thieves address. If the Tile were in a different location might get lucky and if they don’t find it first could be a longer term tracker albeit less effective . Maybe that’s too complicated

 

[eMarc]

I cut out a square of sponge and then cut a small slit, pushed my finger in and expanded the gap in the middle of it and then pushed the tile inside before hiding it in the frame, I have never had a rattle.

Has anybody tried a tile or airtag in a non carbon frame and did it still work?