How to update AirTag Location

Apple does not recommend using AirTags on pets or children, just things. Besides, AirTags only send location information on occasion and need to be near a Apple device. That wouldn't be the best option to find a lost pet.

I am not here with a helpful comment, I only navigated here because I have the exact same issue and I live in Maryland, USA. It’s truly frustrating that my air tags aren’t updating frequently. This is the same

frustration I have whenever I misplace my AirPods. I was hoping to find answers myself because I’ve misplaced my keys a few times. Sometimes the sound will go off and other times it won’t.

So if my keys are in a taxi and it's moving, it'll take me THAT much longer to find them? You see how it still isn't a great tool even for "things". I have one that I put on my daughter's backpack and I have better chances tracking her in real-time on the Verizon app instead of using the Find My with the Airtag. In addition, when the "Find My" app is advertised to locate your friends to know when they make it home safe (I just checked the Apple page on Find My), then it is assumed that the app itself should update in real-time regardless of the device. Regardless of the device, it's the app, I feel that isn't updating in real-time and that's the biggest issue. Maybe they should ask Verizon what they are doing with their Smart Family app to allow me to track my daughter's phone as her bus moves through its route to our home. I bought an Airtag for her and was disappointed when 30 minutes had gone by and it still showed that she was at her school, when in fact she was in our neighborhood. If someone had stolen my keys, that's 30 minutes that I lost in finding them.

The Find My app updates the location of the devices of the family members as well as the location of the friends who share their location with you just fine.

The problem is not with the Find My app but with how Apple has implemented the AirTag's tracking. It appears to me that if an AirTag is in close proximity of just one iPhone (not the iPhone it's registered with), then the update of the AirTag's location is very infrequent. This is probably in order to prevent active tracking of a person by planting your AirTag in their luggage, clothing, or vehicle. It may be that if you leave your AirTag attached to your keys, wallet, etc. in a public place with more than one iPhones in the close proximity, then the location will be reported more frequently, as it will be reported by multiple iPhones. I don't know this for sure, but that appears to be a plausible explanation why we are seeing the location of the AirTag to be updated so infrequently.

So far, all of my tests involved placing an AirTag in my son's backpack and seeing how often its location is updated when my son is at school. The location updates of that AirTag come very infrequently - not even every 30 minutes. It may very well be because at any time, the AirTag is in the close proximity of just one teacher's iPhone. When my wife picks up my son from school, the location updates of the AirTag (actually it's a Chipolo tag, but it's the same thing) in my son's back is also very infrequent, but this again my be due to the fact that as they are driving home, there is only one iPhone that is in the close proximity of the AirTag.

In other words, it seems to me that Apple tried to straddle both sides of the fence - providing object tracking with an AirTag while preventing people from being able to track others with an AirTag, which is an impossible task. So, what we got as a result is a poorly implemented tracking solution, which can't provide a real-time or near-real-time location updates of the object to which your AirTag is attached.

It's actually pretty good for things as those things are often static. And, that's kind of the idea. Your keys aren't going to be moving around on their own. You can track a phone in near real-time in FindMy, because it's pinging the cell network constantly. I don't think the intention with AirTags is to provide real-time tracking, just to aid you in finding missing items.

I confirmed today that I can get updates of the the Air Tag's (actually Chipolo One tag) much more frequently if it encounters different iPhones along the way compared to it being accompanied by one iPhone (to which it's not registered). I believe that that's the way that Apple has implemented the anti-stalking feature.

In the past, I gave my wife my keys with a Chipolo One tag on the key chain when she took our dog for a walk. Then, I tried tracking my key, but I only received one location update in over an hour. Today, however, my wife left her phone at home when she went for a walk with the dog. Our dog has another Chipolo tag (registered with my wife's iPhone) attached to her collar. So, when I started tracking the Chipolo One tag attached to our dog's collar, I was getting location updates about every 5-6 minutes. I made a note of the places where the Chipolo's tag locations were reported, and my wife said that in every one of these locations she passed a person on her walk.

So, my conclusion is that the previous tests described here by me and others do not simulate properly the conditions in which the Air Tag (or Chipolo One tag) is designed to regularly update its location. If the tag is accompanied by the same iPhone, the iPhone will not report its location to iCloud as frequently compared with the scenario when the tag encounters different iPhones along its way.

So, the Air Tag tracking may very well be useful for locating items outside the range of the iPhone that it's registered with as long as the item to which the Air Tag is attached has not been stolen by someone with an iPhone. Because in that case the location updates will be very infrequent. A dog running in the neighborhood seems to be triggering frequent location updates every time the tag attached to the dog's collar encounters another iPhone in its Bluetooth range. I don't know if it's actually possible to find a dog this way, but it's certainly possible to locate the general area where the dog is and perhaps with some luck - find the dog by calling its name.

That would certainly explain the widely varying times that the AirTags update their position when they are in the constant presence of the iPhone that is accompanying them. I’m going to experiment with your idea to see if I can replicate your results. Thanks for the idea.

i think they are useless. bought two of them and neither updates. had my son walk around neighborhood with one in his pocket. (with his iphone in his hand). didn’t update the whole 28minutes. would be useless to quickly track dog.

I am absolutely furious that I wasted 100 dollars of my hard earned money on this crap. I share a truck with another driver and I bought these to put one in the truck so I can see how much longer it will be until he gets back to the yard. It’s not updating. Complete waste of money

Like I explains above, it won’t update the location if it’s in range of the same iPhone. For a frequent location update, thé tag has to be encountered by multiple iPhones. This is an anti-stalking feature.

You can’t track a tag by hoping to get frequent location updates from the same iPhone that accompanied the tag. You will get one location update from that iPhone and then the iPhone will realize that the tag is moving along with it and will stop updating the tag’s location. To get another update, the tag will have to be in range of another iPhone.

Apple spoke of the anti-stalking frairies that they implemented with Air Tags, but thy never went into detail about how the anti-stalking feature was implemented other than you get notified after 3 days that someone’s tag has been moving with your phone. I always wondered how Apple thought it was sufficient to notify if someone stalking you 3 days later. But from my experiment, I believe that what Apple didn’t dismiss is that the iPhone detects that someone else’s tag is accompanying it much quicker than it lets it’s user know, so the iPhone simply stops reporting the location of someone else’s tag that’s accompanying it.

therefore, you can’t track your truck with an Air Tag. You could track your runaway dog because it’s tag will be detected by multiple iPhones along the path the dog runs. But, if someone with an iPhone steals your dog, you won’t be able to track its Air Tag because the At Tags location will not be reported by the thieve’s iPhone more than once.

This means that the Air Tag can’t be used as a theft tracking device. It’s purpose is to track a list item, which is likely to be encountered by multiple iPhones.

Unless you forget it in someone’s car. At least with tile, when you mark it as lost, you get notified where it is. You leave your bag in your friend’s car, and you won’t ever find it because your friend has an iPhone too. It isn’t like you can even mark it as lost, and have an alert come up on your friend’s phone that there is a lost item close to their location.

So you can’t track any item you leave by or with a person with an iPhone, which rather defeats the purpose of the tag. By kids’ backpacks would never be found on the school bus, as the bus driver’s phone would always be there. So really, your better off with a luggage tag and hope someone calls you.

You can get frequent updates about the Air Tag location if thé Air Tag is encountered by other iPhones. It’s just that if they Air Tag is only encountered by one iPhone, and the iPhone detects that the Air Tag is moving geographic locations along with it, the iPhone stops updating the location of the Air Tag. But that doesn’t prevent other iPhones from reporting in the Air Tag’s location as long as they don’t move along with the AirTag.

There was always a concern that an Air Tag planted on a person with an iPhone can be used as a tracking device , whereas the same Air Tag planted on a person with an Android phone cannot be used as a tracking device. So, iPhone users would be more vulnerable to being tracked or stalked by an Air Tag than Android users. So, that’s how Apple addressed that concern. If you plant your Air Tag on an iPhone user, his iPhone will only update the Air Tag’s location as long as the Air Tag doesn’t move together with the iPhone. If the Air Tag moves together with the iPhone, the iPhone will. It report the Air Tag’s location similarly to the way that Android phone will not report the Air Tag’s location.

In other words, Apple has equalized iPhone users with Android users in that neither category of users can be tracked with an Air Tag.

And made it so the airtag isn’t working as advertised.

if you leave your bag on a train or live in New York, that’s fine. If you live someplace like Ohio, that means it won’t work at all. On a school bus, the kids will only ‘encounter’ the bus driver’s phone. When I forget my bag in my friend’s car, it will only ‘encounter’ my friend’s phone. When my husband walks the dog, it will only ‘encounter’ my husband’s phone.

You can state any reason / rationale, but the bottom line is that they don’t work. It isn’t like you can set it to lost mode, and the phone traveling ‘with’ it will get a notification. Wouldn’t it be nice if my friend would see a notification “Jane’s bag’s airtag is marked as lost, and close to your location” and then you could say to yourself ‘I just dropped Jane off at home 20 minutes ago….. I bet she forgot her bag in the backseat.’??? Tile has it figured out. I have never had a problem with the Tiles working, just not lasting. And I thought that the iOS devices would be better than just the devices with Tile apps. Wrong.

And just for the record, as you must have missed it, when my husband’s phone did pick up the Airtag of our missing dog, neither of us got an alert. His phone connected on a Tuesday and on a Saturday when a neighbor said they saw our dog, I opened the app to see where my husband was going / to see it the location in the other tab ‘item’ updated when he got there. It was only then that I saw the location at our house updated from Aug 1 to Aug 11, still marked as lost, still with our home address. When he got home we walked the property again, where he was spraying for poison ivy while I was at soccer with the kids, and that’s when we finally found the dog’s collar at the creek 100 feet from our house. He washed it and we put it in the garage until we could tell the kids. An hour later, I got an alert it had been found. So for 11 days, we had my iPhone, my husband’s iPhone, a family member’s iPhone, my two sons’ iPhones, out looking for him, plus two other friends came to visit with iPhones. Seven iPhones, 11 days, no updates on location. It.doesn’t.work.

That doesn’t work. If you have read any of my other posts, you would have already seen that I said that didn’t work. My dog is gone forever because it didn’t work. 11 days, about 60 acres of searches, at least 7 iPhones involved in the area, and it finally turned up amount three feet from where I was standing the first day. No idea where it was during the 11 days, because it doesn’t work.

As a test, on the first day, we marked the other dog’s tag as lost, and my husband and his cousin took it for a 15 minute drive. It never sent an alert to any phone, nor did it ever update the location, the entire drive. It just showed as being at home, where it was last connected to my phone, and counted up the minutes that I knew it was gone, until they returned home and I went to retrieve the collar from them. At that point, it connected to my phone and updated the time. It never did send an alert that it was found. It never updated location with either of their phones.

If your husband walks the dog with an AirTag on its collar, the AirTag should be encountered by iPhones of the people whom he meets during the walk, and those iPhones will report their location when the AirTag is in their proximity.

On a school bus, the location will most likely not be updated during the route because the AirTag will be traveling alongside all the iPhones on the same bus. So, each of those iPhones will report the AirTag’s location once and then realize that the AirTag is moving along with them and will cease further location updates.

When you leave your purse in your friend’s car, you already know where you left the bag. Right? Are you complaining that you can’t track your friend’s whereabouts by planting an AirTag in her car? Because that would be stalking your fiend, and Apple specifically implemented the mechanisms that defeat stalking attempts. Also, if you have the iPhone in the same purse that you left in the back seat of your friend’s car, you (or your husband) can track your iPhone and even make it sound an alarm so that your friend would hear it, look back, and see your purse in the back seat.

As for your missing dog, I’m sorry for what happened. Unfortunately, I can’t follow your story, though. If you think that something didn’t work correctly with the AirTag tracking your dog’s location, and you want others to understand what you think didn’t work as designed, you may want to consider simplifying it (e.g. removing the details of poison ivy spraying, kids soccer practice, etc.) and putting some commas there in appropriate places, so that the story could be followed. I re-read that story multiple times trying to understand what you are attempting to say, and I can’t make any sense of it.

Apple specifically said the AirTag was not a pet tracking device. I bought a Chipolo One tag and put it on my dog’s collar, but this is just a backup plan. I take other precautions not to let my dog run away. If she does, the tag may or may not help. It’s certainly not going to hurt, and since there is no monthly fee, it’s a cheap ($30) security blanket to make me feel that in the worst case scenario, there will be a way for me to possibly identify the general area where my dog may be running.

i was very disappointed in the way the Chipolo One tag’s location wasn’t updated frequently enough during my tests until I realized that my tests were faulty. I was testing the frequency of the tag’s location by having the same phone move alongside the tag. After trial and error I realized that it was working as designed. When the tag’s location is encountered by multiple iPhones that do not move in the same pattern as the tag, the tag’s location is updated frequently.