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A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

elevationlab.com

371–380 of 592 posts

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are also very bad for tracking compared to what you can get on Aliexpress/eBay/Amazon (which are the same tbh). For about the same price you can get a device with a SIM card and GPS/GLONASS and _zero_ ways to detect it.

What's the battery life on that though? The appeal of AirTags is that they last a year and work anywhere that has an iPhone nearby.

Depends on the device. Some are active all the time, some can sleep and only wake up to get their position fix every hour or so. It's not exactly rocket science to adjust the programming.

And if you're stalking someone for a year, you'll have ample options to swap the device to a new one with a fresh battery.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#372

I know the concept here is set it and forget it, but still: wouldn't it make more sense to have a smaller (but still probably larger than the current setup) rechargeable battery? I admit I haven't done any research on this, but the Magic Mouse/Keyboard seem to prove the concept of a rechargeable battery lasting months at least, and the Apple Watch proves the idea of wireless charging in a compact form factor, so it s…

Months would be painful. I have six airtags, so at two years life I’m replacing a battery every 4 months. If the lifespan was 3 months, I would be recharging one every two weeks. That means pulling them out of (relatively) hidden spots on a car and scooter, a laptop bag that I don’t even use most months, etc. For me, it would mean most of them were dead most of the time.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s left anywhere in the open at anytime, you can repossess it legally as well. This happens with auto repossessions all the time. You don’t owe anyone an explanation as it’s yours - just take it if you can do so safely.

Just be careful! In SOME jurisdictions, you can get in trouble for 'stealing' if you take back something that was stolen. Possession vs Ownership are 2 different things. For instance, the thief may have stolen something, sold it to someone who bought it in good-faith, and you take it back from that person, it's technically theft! File a police report, go through the right channels. If you know its yours, call the pol…

Helpful knowledge, thanks!

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theft-tracking is sort of an "off-label" use for AirTags, from Apple's perspective. They'd rather make AirTags less generally useful than make them both more generally useful + open to stalking occurrences and lawsuits.

Agreed on the trade-off. And there are some absolutely 1000% winning use cases (lost cats, lost dogs, lost luggage). However, lets look at the constraints and outcomes: - Me or other people need to be around (since airtags jump off others' devices) This removes use cases like tracking lost marine goods, tracking lost drones, etc. - Item being tracked has to be big enough to be worth the extra size/weight of the long…

> This removes most common use cases like wallets, remotes, etc.

I use an airtag for my wallet and apple remote.

https://ridge.com/products/carbon-case-for-airtag

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09G4PT3NJ

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#375

I know the concept here is set it and forget it, but still: wouldn't it make more sense to have a smaller (but still probably larger than the current setup) rechargeable battery? I admit I haven't done any research on this, but the Magic Mouse/Keyboard seem to prove the concept of a rechargeable battery lasting months at least, and the Apple Watch proves the idea of wireless charging in a compact form factor, so it s…

I imagine that keeping the cost down might have been important when designing this. You don't need a rechargeable battery and the charging circuitry.

10 years is also long enough that perhaps the tracker might stop being supported before its battery runs out.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#377
post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what type of mad max world you live in.

Toronto & NYC

Welp, perhaps demand better from your elected officials.

I live in a town. A few years ago, I had my car broken into with my bag and laptop stolen. Cops took fingerprints and forensics, found a match in a database, visited the suspect, arrested him (as he couldn't explain why his fingerprints was in my car), searched, found, and reclaimed my property.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "they" I assume you are talking about your police department and not perhaps a department in another location or country?

No

So you’re speaking on behalf of all police departments

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#379
post #51
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they run a proprietary Apple software, and have NFC and UWB inside them?

When the software is fixed we're back to thinking of the object as a single piece of hardware. My Gamecube and Xbox 360 have been working for (nearly) 20 years now. Unless there's a known failure mode in these devices that gets worn down over time you should probably expect them to outlive you. The worst you'll probably get is corrosion from the AA batteries in the pack.

The software isn't fixed.

Re: A 10-Year Battery for AirTag

#380
post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be curious what jurisdiction that is true. In my jurisdiction in the US it doesn’t matter if someone purchased the stolen goods or not, the goods still belong to the owner. This is sometimes called the "nemo dat" rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_dat_quod_non_habet The person buying the stolen goods would need to file a claim against the thief to recover their money, but the goods still belong to the origi…

That is probably mostly a common law thing, and as the article notes > however, in many cases, more than one innocent party is involved, making judgment difficult for courts and leading to numerous exceptions to the general rule that aim to give a degree of protection to bona fide purchasers and original owners > The person buying the stolen goods would need to file a claim against the thief to recover their money Ge…

The key element for a bona fide sale at common law is the buyer’s absence of knowledge of the defective title of the seller.

Not sure how US courts have interpreted this requirement but that’s the onus and I believe it rests on the third party buyer (to show absence of knowledge through evidence).

In that case the claim is against the thief only.

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