[pnw]

Unfortunately the anti-stalking features have made Airtag mostly useless for theft prevention. You have less than an hour to retrieve your item before the tag alerts the thief they are being tracked. I've seen it trigger as quickly as 30 minutes.

[Zarel]

To me, the bigger problem is the lack of ability for Android phones to register an AirTag as recognized. They've never done anything to address the problem of "drive your wife's car and her AirTag is beeping at you and your Android phone is beeping at you and there's no way to tell either one to stop".

[danpalmer]

As the owner of many airtags and some Airpods who has switched to Android, this is infuriating. I get beeps and unknown tracker notifications multiple times a day.

There are technical limitations in Apples design that prevents Android or anyone else from fixing it.

I left iOS because of degrading UX, and the UX of these products has got even worse as a result.

[pests]

Not the best solution but you could turn off "Unknown tracker alerts" on your phone temporarily when you're driving your wife's car etc.

[pompidoo]

I developed a device that turns an Airtag on and off at specific intervals (roughly 80% off 20% on). While the AirTag is off, it can’t be detected, and when it turns on again, you can locate it and with it your stolen item: https://undetectag.com I'm about to order the new version to check whether it works on it too

[framapotari]

Given how tracking stolen items is technically identical to tracking a person, wouldn't this also be a device for undetectable stalking?

[rahimnathwani]

You may want to update the marketing copy until you've tested it: "The device is guaranteed to work with the current version of the AirTag."

[vostrocity]

This is brilliant just like Elevation Lab's 10 year battery for the AirTag. Do you think they'll work together?

[wumms]

Combining Pareto and Murphy might result in 4 hours head start for the thief though.

[LeoPanthera]

> Unfortunately the anti-stalking features have made Airtag mostly useless for theft prevention.

While this is true, Airtags are not designed for theft prevention, and never have been. They're designed to locate lost items.

Apple should be applauded for making the only tracking tags with literally any kind of anti-stalking features at all.

[codeflo]

I'm not fully onboard with the logic that we just have to live with a certain type of criminal behavior because the technology that could prevent it can be misused to enable another type of criminal behavior. We should aim to stop any kind of criminal behavior.

[hk1337]

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

Initially they didn’t have it, people complained, now they do, and people still complain.

[slg]

Considering theft is a property crime and stalking is often a prelude to much worse, I think they made the right choice.

[thebruce87m]

> Initially they didn’t have it

They did have anti-stalking from the start btw. People still complained that it wasn’t good enough so they reduced some of the timings.

[framapotari]

Maybe it's different people.

[snarky_dog]

fortunately stalkers can now use Flock, so they don't need to buy airtags.

[burnt-resistor]

Wrong bothsidesism. The right choice was making a functional product. This is not that.

[fuzzer371]

> Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

So you can either keep a tag on your stuff that lets anyone know where you are at all times, or just not misplace your keys. It really doesn't seem that hard to not use something this privacy intrusive if that's your threat model.

[fortran77]

I disable the speaker in the ones I attach to luggage. (For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vAQNedIa0o )

[matsemann]

Can it alert of my item being moved? Because it seems quite useless for the bicycle example in their screenshot.

My Samsung SmartTag gives me a notification if the bike changes position and I'm not nearby. Actually giving me a chance to track it down.

[clayhacks]

Not that I’ve found. Seems pretty reasonable trade off to me if it notified both parties rather than just the person with the tag

[johncolanduoni]

How useful is a GPS position for theft prevention? IME cops are not interested in doing more than filing a report after a theft, even if you have a live GPS location of the item for them. Do you try and go get it yourself?

[h00kwurm]

i can speak to this as i had my motorcycle stolen on NYE last year in Santa Monica with an airtag in it. the Santa Monica police said “smart, but it’s in LA so we can’t help you get it. tell the LAPD.”. it took me seven hours of calls to the LAPD while personally hunting down my bike in the shadiest areas of LA, and being a block away from getting it myself, did they come. so yes, if you’re in LA, you basically get it yourself.

in my case, the damage was so much i wish i had just left it stolen and taken the bigger insurance payout.

[Cthulhu_]

GPS won't prevent theft, but can help in recovery. Can.

But Apple does more stuff as well, like encrypting your phone and making it so even harvesting a stolen phone for parts is unattractive (everything has serial numbers and you can't just swap a part out).

[burnt-resistor]

In Austin, they won't lift a finger because they're underfunded and don't have the resources to address nonviolent crime.

[epistasis]

Interesting, I hadn't considered theft recovery to be a use case for Airtags before. I've only used them for "where the hell did that X go".

[GoatInGrey]

To be fair, you'd likely ask that exact question if your X was stolen!

[WheatMillington]

How would airtags work as theft prevention? Airtags only enter the equation once something has already been stolen.

[thereisnospork]

Setting expectations and thinning the herd. If even half of items had a well hidden air tag, and the cops successfully followed up even half of tagged thefts:

There would a. be less dumb criminals around to repeat offend and b. The smarter would-be criminals will do the calculus and and not steal items which could have tags.

[vostrocity]

Something like this product could potentially be a small theft deterrant.

You can tell there's an AirTag, and there's no easy way to remove it.

https://www.elevationlab.com/collections/airtag/products/tag...

[crazygringo]

I think "theft recovery" is probably meant.

[elAhmo]

In addition to this, AirTag also makes a sound when on the move.

This is also quite ridiculous, as it literally gives away that there is an AirTag there. I have seen people removing the speaker to eliminate this flaw.

[eloisant]

That's not a flaw, that's an anti-stalking feature

[lysace]

What happens after that? It goes dark? Or it just alerts the thief (stalker victim)?

[chasil]

I have only seen the Google side, just a single time when one of my Chipolos threw an alert on my passenger's Samsung.

My Chipolo certainly still works.

There are [cheap] tags being sold that are compatible with both Apple Find My and Google's Find Hub. I would rather have a dual-network device than Apple's improved model.

Would it be so difficult for Apple to put a hole in the Airtag so it could be directly attached to a keychain?

Here is an example of dual-network tags:

https://www.amazon.com/Tracker-Locator-Android-Bluetooth-Fin...

[pnw]

It sends alerts to the thief's iPhone or Android (if you have Apple's Tracker Detect Android app) that they are being tracked within 30 to 60 minutes. It also enables the beeping so the thief can find and remove the Airtag.

If the Airtag can't reach the thief's phone, it starts chirping by itself within an 8-24 hour window.

[DeathArrow]

It is morally wrong to stalk the thieves.