On the outside,
Apple’s new AirTag looks like a ho-hum product
that we have all seen before. It’s a disc-shaped tracking gadget that can be
attached to items like house keys to help you find them.
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But inside, the story gets far more interesting.
The
AirTag, which Apple introduced last week, is one of the
first consumer electronics to support a new wireless technology,
ultrawideband,
which lets you detect precise proximity between objects. Using ultrawideband,
your iPhone can sense whether an AirTag is an inch or dozens of feet away from
it. It’s so accurate that its app will even show an arrow pointing you in the
direction of the AirTag.
That’s far better than other trackers that rely on Bluetooth, an
older wireless technology that can only roughly guess an item’s proximity.
(More on how this all works later.)
Using ultrawideband to find lost items is just one early example
of what the technology can do. Because of its pinpoint-precise ability to
transfer data quickly between devices, ultrawideband could become the next
wireless standard that succeeds Bluetooth. It could lead to better wireless
earphones, keyboards, video game controllers — you name it.
“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Frederic Nabki, chief
technology officer of Spark Microsystems, a Montreal-based firm that is
developing ultrawideband technology, said of trackers like the AirTag. “It
sends its data really, really fast.”
I tested Apple’s $29 AirTag, which will be released Friday, for
about a week. I used the tracker to find house keys, locate my dogs and track a
backpack. I also ran similar tests with Tile, a $25 tracker that relies on
Bluetooth and that has been around for about eight years.
Last week, Tile complained in an antitrust hearing that Apple
had copied its product while putting smaller companies at a disadvantage. From
my tests comparing AirTag and Tile, I found that ultrawideband was far superior
to Bluetooth for finding items. What’s more, the AirTag demonstrated that
ultrawideband is next-generation tech that is worth getting excited about.
Here’s what you need to know.
How ultrawideband and Bluetooth work
Ultrawideband has been in development for more than 15 years,
but it was built into chips for iPhones and other smartphones only in the past
two years.
When you use ultrawideband to find a tracker, it works similarly
to sonar, which detects objects underwater. You send a ping to the tag, and the
tag bounces a ping back to your phone. The amount of time it takes for the ping
to come back is used to calculate the distance between the two objects.
But when you use Bluetooth to find a tracker, your phone is
pushing out a continuous signal in search of it. The farther you move away from
the tracker, the weaker the signal gets, and the closer you move toward it, the
stronger it becomes. This technique is used to tell you roughly how far away
you are from the tracker.
Tile vs. AirTag
So what do the two underlying wireless technologies mean in
practice?
Tile works with both iPhones and Android phones using Bluetooth
technology to find items. Open the Tile app, select an item and hit the “find”
button. The app will look for the Tile and send a signal to connect, after
which it makes the tracker play a melody. If the signal connection is weak, it
will tell you to move around until the signal gets stronger.
If your phone can’t find a Tile because it is outside its range,
you can put it in “lost mode.” The tracker will search for other Tile owners
who have granted the Tile app access to their location to help find other
people’s lost items. If a Tile-owning Samaritan is near your Tile, that person’s
device will share its location with the Tile network, which will show where the
item was last spotted on a map.
Apple’s AirTag works with iPhones both new and old. Newer
devices (the iPhone 11 and 12 series) can take advantage of ultrawideband’s
precise locator abilities. To find an item, you open the Find My app, select an
item and tap Find. From there, the app will form a connection with the AirTag.
The app combines data gathered with the phone’s camera, sensors and
ultrawideband chip to direct you to the location of the tag, using an arrow to
point you to it. Older iPhones can track AirTags with Bluetooth using a method
similar to Tile’s.
Similar to Tile, when an AirTag is lost and outside the range of
your phone, you can put it in lost mode and allow other Apple phones to find
the AirTag to help you see where the item was last spotted on a map.
Testing
The benefits of ultrawideband could easily be seen in a few
tests.
For one experiment, I asked my wife to hide several AirTags and
Tiles throughout our home and then time how long it took me to find them.
In one test, she hid an AirTag attached to my motorcycle key
somewhere in our bedroom. Apple’s Find My app used an arrow to point me toward
the mattress and I pressed a button to make the tag play a sound. After
rummaging through the covers and peeking under the bed, I found the AirTag
crammed under the mattress. It took about 90 seconds.
Next, I had to find a Tile attached to my house key. I opened
the Tile app and hit the Find button. The app said the signal was weak and
suggested I walk around to find a stronger connection. As I moved downstairs, I
could hear the Tile’s melody and the app said the signal was getting stronger.
I found the Tile hidden inside a bin in a garage locker. It took about a
minute.
The toughest was an AirTag hidden inside a book. Apple’s Find My
app pointed toward the correct shelf, but it couldn’t tell me precisely which
book the tag was shoved inside. After removing four books from the shelf and
flipping through pages, I found the AirTag inside a cookbook. This provided my
wife with three minutes of entertainment.
Separately, to test how the trackers worked when they were too
far from my phone, I attached a Tile and an AirTag to both my dogs’ collars and
put the tags in lost mode when my wife took them for a walk. Nearby smartphones
eventually helped me locate both trackers to show me where the dogs were in the
neighborhood.
Bottom Line
Even though the AirTag is an impressive demonstration of
ultrawideband technology, that doesn’t make it the best tracker for everyone.
Because of the AirTag’s compatibility with Apple products, I
would give an AirTag to an iPhone owner. But I would give a Tile to a person
with an Android phone.
The AirTag is also far from perfect. I wished they were louder —
they are very quiet compared with Tiles — so playing sound wasn’t very helpful
for finding them. I also did not love that for most purposes, AirTag requires
buying a separate accessory, like a key ring, to hold the tracker.
In contrast, the Tile has a hole punched into its corner to
attach to a key ring or zipper head. (The $29 price tag of the AirTag is
eclipsed by Apple’s $35 leather key ring.)
Because of its greater efficiency at transmitting data,
ultrawideband could make future wireless devices immensely better, Nabki said.
As an example, he cited cord-free earphones that connect instantly, use very
little battery and sound as good as wired ones.
That sounds much cooler than finding house keys.
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