Air Tags or 5G Networks - You Pick

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

So, the wife and I upgraded our phones the other day down at Sam's Club.  That meant buying a new case on Amazon.  While I was looking around, I kept noticing these Air Tags and figured I'd surprise the wife with a little something extra. Now, we live a little ways into the boonies, and though we've got a decent wired Internet connection and good LOS on a cell tower, we're probably low on the upgrade list for the new-fangled infrastructure being rolling out.

If you don't have an iPhone it's probably a waste of time shplaining their features and how they work.  If you do have one, you've prolly figured all that stuff out by now on yer own.

I don't know why, but I stuck one of these extra air tag boogers onto my dog's collar.  Kind'a neat that you can name the tag and assign an icon to it.  The tags are supposed to have some proximity transmission capability.  If the tag gets outside of a 'detection range' of about 10 or 15 feet, you can't track it from your cell (which is pretty cool technology to look at all by itself).  First time I drove away from the house, my phone shows me a dog icon and says, "Luke has been left behind."  **I turned around and put him in the truck, BTW ... love that dog ... giggle**

What I noticed (the reason for starting this thread), was that out here in the woods, those air tags don't work so great.  Signal is off and on.  Tracking is mostly non-existent ... sporadic at best.  In town though, it's a whole 'nuther story.  The closest big town to us just went 5G.  Doesn't matter where we park around there, the Air Tags are always visible.  Their proximity (using the Find My app) is ALWAYS to within a few feet of the device. The way they're advertised, there's no guarantee they'll work unless they're within 10 feet of a device (my thoughts said, "Cell phone.") loaded with an app (plus bluetooth) that'll relay the Air Tag's signal.  Doesn't seem to be the case when you're under a 5G umbrella.  It never stops identifying and broadcasting the specific location of the tag.

Anyway, those are my initial observations and thoughts.  Was wondering what other opinions there are out there.

Thank you so much for this post. 

I have been thinking about getting air tags for my crits. I live in the woods, and my Huskies have a long history of being darters. The moment they can get free or get the zoomies, they are off to the races, and words of recall disappears from their list of words of recognition.

Signal out here is absolutely lousy. I had not taken range into consideration, and my Huskies could be five miles away in less than 10 minutes. So I am rethinking the wisdom of purchasing six air tags, to be used for tracking my exploring Huskies.

Thank you for giving me pause. I will have to look at another tool for tracking. It just has to be cheap, at least affordable.