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A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

elevationlab.com

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Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#141

Post by tivert »

buescher wrote: post #86

The third time someone calls to complain that the alkaline batteries they put in this leaked, they'll wish they used a soldered-in 3V lithium primary cell. Even though that goes against a certain ethos.

> The third time someone calls to complain that the alkaline batteries they put in this leaked, they'll wish they used a soldered-in 3V lithium primary cell. Even though that goes against a certain ethos.

Those aren't alkaline batteries. Energizer makes AA/AAA-size lithium primary batteries, which is what they are using. They wont leak and have a 25 year shelf life.

https://data.energizer.com/pdfs/l91.pdf

And I don't think they'd get complaints about alkaline batteries leaking. I think pretty much anyone (even those who don't understand batteries), would tend to blame the batteries themselves, not the device they're in.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#142

Post by echoangle »

Grazester wrote: post #93
echoangle wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if a thief has an iPhone or manually installed the Android App.

The latest version of Android shows this now. I had to install nothing on my phone for this(I get a full map showing the tracking behavior) From a year ago https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/newest-android-feature-aler...

Ah I completely missed that, thanks! Very nice that this is supported everywhere now.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#143

Post by unsnap_biceps »

kube-system wrote: post #59
smileybarry wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AirTags get updates regularly, so they'd probably get power-cycled sooner than that.

They're not being updated any more frequently than they are already reporting their battery status, are they?

I would presume the battery status is sent as part of the beacon, firmware is updated only when the phone is locked and charging in range of the tag.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#144

Post by jonhohle »

chadash wrote: post #65
jerlam wrote: post #4

Not a bad price, but it does require an existing Airtag. Ten years is a very long time in tech. I wouldn't be confident that the Airtag protocol will be functioning in 2035, and there are already rumors of a new Airtag and possibly a newer protocol coming up.

> Ten years is a very long time in tech. Well, they certainly _might_ be functioning in ten years from now. Conservatively, you get 5 years of use out of this, which isn't bad for $15-20, depending on your use case.

I replace AirTag batteries every 6 months to be safe, so $15 (plus batteries) isn’t significantly more expensive over 5 years.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#145

Post by duskwuff »

fiatpandas wrote: post #122
saturn8601 wrote: post #25

Any chance that the AirTag could have a software memory leak that would normally be masked by cutting power once a year? Its possible right? The code must be written in something low level like C. Would be kinda funny if 10 years from now the author gets his stuff stolen again and then discovers said memory leak crashed the Airtag 9 years ago. As Elon Musk likes to say: "The most ironic outcome is the most likely" .…

That's a very good point. The system design of the airtags assumed a much shorter battery life, which may have led to decisions that would introduce issues at 10x battery life. Thinking more like overflow issues. But could also be a complete non-issue. Hard to say.

Given the resources on the device (it's a Nordic nRF52832 with 64 KB RAM), I'd expect any memory leaks or similar defects to show up well before a year.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#146

Post by unsnap_biceps »

jakespencer wrote: post #131
unsnap_biceps wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only complains once that the battery is low and never again, I've run into a dead battery when searching for an AirTag multiple times.

This has not been my experience. I’ve had multiple AirTags notify me multiple times over a period of months that I needed to change the batteries.

So last week my keys AirTag was dead, and I checked my notifications and I only received one notification in October that it had a low battery, but to be fair, I don't know exactly when it died between October and last week.

Maybe my batteries die completely before the second notification triggers.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#147

Post by colechristensen »

roland35 wrote: post #137
cute_boi wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wish police do honey trap more often like put expensive equipment. That will definitely reduce lot of crimes.

Didn't that work well with car theft? I believe reading something like that

https://mndaily.com/190563/uncategorized/minneapolis-police-...

It's a thing in Minneapolis, though the Kia Boys thing was still very real here, I don't know how much they've kept it up.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#148

Post by whycome »

Osyris wrote: post #94
jmull wrote: post #81

I know this is useful (for something), but I'm stuck on the plot holes in the motivating story... Why didn't they replace the battery when the app complained? How long would a thief really keep the AirTag anyway? If the thief did keep the AirTag and you tracked them down, then what? A confrontation has a fairly high chance to have a worse result than losing some equipment. You could try to get the police to do it, bu…

I've been wanting exactly this for so long. I want to bury an AirTag in my luggage, backpack, etc. and never think about it again. In those scenarios, it doesn't _need_ to be tiny. I'd rather trade compactness for longevity. However, an AirTag attached to my keys _should_ be small and it's easily accessible so I don't mind swapping the battery as needed.

I fully expect Apple to release the airTag in different form factors. They can then also sell a whole bunch of new accessories. A 'pen' form factor with replaceable AAAA battery might be perfect for myself.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#149

Post by _yb2s »

drdaeman wrote: post #119
_yb2s wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something wrong with your configuration/setup, it is not supposed to start chirping unless it is out of range of your phone for at least 8 days, and not in one of the predefined geofence regions you can setup where it won't chirp. I have them on tons of my devices, including my kids personal items that go to school, etc. and they never chirp, and I can and have found items that were misplaced in public locat…

> There is something wrong with your configuration/setup Something is off for sure, but it's not like there are any user-configurable parts here. I literally just threw it in the trunk - and it's not like there's a right and a wrong way to do it. :-) I guess it's because I don't have a garage and my car is parked in a carport, about ~100 feet/~30 meters away from my apartment, so it "normally" doesn't sense my phone…

You can configure the geofencing locations where it won't alarm in the 'Find My' app.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#150

Post by indrora »

drdaeman wrote: post #56

Are AirTags actually useful for anti-theft purposes? I threw one in the trunk of my car (just in case - I ordered a 4-pack and I had a spare one), and every single time I drive somewhere it chirps loudly when I'm exiting my driveway, making its presence immediately obvious without any delays, and despite my phone being with me in the car.

Yes, actually. It's not a panacea, but it's a foothold.

Nearly all my hardside cases have an airtag stuffed in one of the "Surface Mount" kits from ElevationLab. it looks like a pressure valve on the other side, and I might replace them with Security mounts if I'm really worried. Having those was a FANTASTIC way to track my cases as I left them with a (trusted) friend to be shipped along some other Very High Value gear. Being able to see what was going on (and know when it had reached its destination) was invaluable. On the way back, I could see my luggage as it slugged its way through the airport luggage handling system. It's not real-time but good enough for rough location.

A friend of mine was able to locate their stolen vehicle down to the block and then drone-find the vehicle from there, call the cops, and ended up busting an interstate chop shop in the process. The AirTag consistently got gasps of updates from passing vehicles and the neighbor's HomePod.

All this because she had hidden an airtag in the gas cap.

There are airlines that are encouraging people to put airtags/tiles/samsung trackers on their checked luggage because it helps them keep the airport handlers in check. A prime example of this is flying with guns (yes, you can fly with guns!) and how having an airtag made it EASIER to recover the firearm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHyb2amIkzo (This happened AGAIN, by the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBngUc3rmY0 -- Yes, airlines are TERRIBLE about handling these things!)

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