• Grass@geddit.social
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    1 year ago

    I know a few people that hide them in their bike frames. Will it tell bike thieves that the tag hidden in the stolen bike is following them?

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I would assume so. It’s a difficult thing, because I’m really not okay with people covertly tracking others with airtags without their consent, but the it can of course also be used to track stolen items or so.

      • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Feels like a tragedy of the commons sorta thing. Most people would use air tags responsibly, but a small number of people abuse them and thus kinda ruin them for everyone. We can’t have nice things because people suck.

    • ayyndrew@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, they aren’t really useful for anti theft, but that’s the compromise you have to make for safety

    • dsmk@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Yes, but that already used to happen before if the thieve had an iPhone.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I think the solution to this problem is embedding the tag into the frame in such a way that removing it would be destructive or at least highly impractical. That’s my plan at least. Waiting for my Chipolo trackers to arrive.

      • HejMedDig@feddit.dk
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        1 year ago

        How would you do that, and what’ll you do when it runs out of battery?

        Embedding it also reduces range by a lot. Gplama did a test

        • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I haven’t done any designs yet. I’m thinking about the steerer tube. It’s carbon so it shouldn’t impede the RF. Another option is somewhere within the saddle. Or maybe inside a reflector, on the wheel or otherwise. Possibly within a pedal, depending on the style of pedals. Or on the inside of a crank arm. Possibly epoxied to it. When the time comes for replacement, chisel it out of the aluminum, epoxy another one. 🤷

    • Polar@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      They’re not anti theft devices. Never were. They are anti losing my shit devices.

      Slap one on your keys, wallet, etc, and when you lose them, you can track them to see where they ended up falling out of your pocket.

      If you want a tracking device, pay for one. They’ll use a SIM card, be undetectable, and track perfectly without needing a network of phones.

  • DopamineDeficient@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    After reading this, I’m wondering how a phone could differentiate an Airtag following me from for example a guy with an Airtag sitting somewhere near me while inside a train for two hours.

    • m-p{3}@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I believe the tracker doesn’t emit the same signal when the phone the AirTag is paired with are communicating directly. So as long as the owner of the airtag is in the vicinity it will not be considered as following/stalking you.

    • ayyndrew@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It can tell because the random guy’s Airtag will be connected to his iPhone, it will only notify people if it isn’t close to the owner’s device

    • cassetti@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’m pretty sure it’s length of time. If you’re on a train next to someone, you won’t be for more than an hour or two. Not two days.

      When the device follows you constantly for multiple days is likely when it’ll make the alert.

    • liontigerwings@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It only notifies you if the air tag is without ite owner. If this wasn’t the case I’d be getting notifications left and right for my wife’s airtag. Instead I only get notifications when her phone is left behind but her tag is with me.

      • IceQuest@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It warns you but it doesn’t contact the police for you. It’s still up to you to assess the situation and your next steps. If you’re on a sleeper train or have any reason to believe it’s not a threat, just ignore it.

    • cassetti@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I have a Tile Tag and it’s not bad. I keep them on my keychain, in the car, and when traveling. They aren’t as predominant as Air Tags yet, but they work.

      I seriously suspect that Google will eventually acquire the Tile brand so they can absorb the patents without having to start from scratch.

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I have a Tile Tag and it’s not bad.

        But afaik, that doesn’t have the same functionality as the air tag?

        Air tags can ping any iPhone and report their location back through the cloud.

        Most android devices won’t have a location reporting function active, unless the person happens to have also installed the Tile app in their phone, which is a pretty small percentage of phone users.

        That’s not going to help me locate my suitcase that Air Canada sent to the other side of the world.

        • cassetti@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          That is correct, currently the tile needs the app running in the background. Which actually a lot of people have. Funny thing is a friend was traveling through Europe so I loaned them a tile to put in their backpack to track if lost. I found that popular travel spots like airports and town squares around Europe worked just fine. It was harder when traveling down the highway for example as far less people would have tile running on their phone in the background.

          Like I said, I hope Google acquires Tile and integrates it like Apple did with the airtag. But instead it sounds like google is working on their own tracking chip, and will be releasing it as soon as Apple integrates their side (so both android and apple will alert users if someone else’s tags are tracking them)

    • cashsky@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Aren’t there a number of small gps trackers on the market that are compatible with Android? Tile and Chipolo to name a couple.

      • cole@lemdro.id
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        1 year ago

        just for clarification, they are Bluetooth trackers. They don’t have a GPS radio within them and have no intrinsic knowledge of where they are located. Essentially just a Bluetooth beacon

        • rDrDr@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Air tags do not have GPS either. They use UWB+bluetooth but rely on the phone for location data.

        • paper_clip@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          The drawback of non-AirTags is that they depend on people consciously opting in to the network (by, say, buying Tiles themselves and running the app). The AirTag network just exists because every iPhone is part of the network, whether or not people have bought AirTags themselves. The AirTag network is orders of magnitude larger and denser than, say, the Tile network.

          This vast difference between coverage networks will also push Tiles to extinction, as the Tile network is now far, far worse than the AirTag one, and there’s not much point in buying one. If you’re serious about tracking your stuff, it’s quite possibly worth buying a used iPad just for this purpose.

          • cole@lemdro.id
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            1 year ago

            I suspect Tile will end up being forced into using either Google’s or Apple’s network. Would be cool to be able to use both someday

      • body_by_make@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        That’s the amazing thing about air tags that no other tracker can offer. For better or for worse, every modern iPhone is - by default - reporting the location of nearby tags. It’s nearly impossible to actually lose something with an AirTag on it assuming it doesn’t come off and the area has even the faintest cell signal.

        That’s far from the case with tile or any other tracker.

        • cole@lemdro.id
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          1 year ago

          I’m optimistic Google will be able to wave a hand and bam now 2 billion Android devices do it courtesy of Google Play Services

  • Routhinator@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    They can? Because I just checked on my Pixel 7 running latest update of Android 13 and the documented feature does not exist under safety and emergency. The update I’m running was released on July 5th and there are no newer updates available.

    So again… “Now”??? I guess they mean it’s in the next version.

    • Chozo@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      From the article:

      > > > Now Android users will soon get these “Unknown Tracker Alerts.” > >

      Emphasis mine.

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Rule of android: if a post reads “now” in the headline, this means anywhere from 1 week to Never depending on where in the world you live and what phone you have.

        • cole@lemdro.id
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          1 year ago

          Also applies to when Google does a “staged” rollout. Android Auto “Coolwalk” PTSD…

  • Artinizal@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Is this just apple airtags or all tracking devices? Honestly all these articles do is teach stalkers not to use airtags and instead use something else.

    • BrikoX@lemmy.zipOP
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      1 year ago

      > the alerts currently work only with AirTags, but Google says it will work with tag manufacturers to expand its coverage.

      Google and Apple built the specification, but other tracker makers needs to adopt it.

    • Tigbitties@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Stalkers don’t give a shit. It’s not like they’re thinking rationally anyway. There’s quite a few non-tag options out there but you need a subscription that’s attached to the device’s unique ID. You can regulate and put in a million ways to prevent stalking but they will always find a way.

    • Serinus@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      And they’ll have to do it without a network of billions of phones helping them.

    • Pika@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I mean they are currently /ok/ but since it’s only samsung devices it bounces off instead of every android device it doesn’t have the versatility that the Apple airtags have (where it bounces off any apple device and any android device with the app), so if it’s between one of the other I would go with air tag since you can still use them on android (with a secondary app) but as always YMMV since it’s made for Apple devices

      that being said, might be changing with googles support for trackers!

    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      No it hasn’t.

      Before, you had to install an app. This is a play store services update, which neans ALL android phones will be able to do it by default.

      • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        You mean it’s built in now. It still has objectively existed for a long time now. There has been an app called AirGuard around for a long time. Also not every Android has play services. There’s a large degoogled operating system community now.

        • paintbucketholder@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          With the official Apple app, you had to know that it existed, find it in the Google Play Store, install it, and then manually run it every single time you wanted to check for trackers.

          With AirGuard, you had to know that an unofficial implementation existed, find it, install it, and then either run a manual sweep or have it permanently run in the background if you wanted to get notified of trackers near you.

          Neither implementation would tell you how long a tracker had been following you, or where it first started following you. Neither option would allow you to ring the tracker. Neither option would allow you to read the information on the tracker via NFC.

          So no, this has not “objectively existed for a long time now.”

          What you mean is that other, far more limited options have existed for a while now.

    • hypelightfly@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Integration into play services so almost all Android devices do it by default without needing to install an app hasn’t.