How to update AirTag Location

I've been having the same issue with my Air Tag since I bought it a few months ago. I put it on my dogs collar for safety reasons as sometimes he slips away in the woods. The location only seems to refresh once a day, and only when it is in range of my phone, or it just updates based on the last time I opened the Find My app. I've had multiple times he ran off in the woods and the Air Tag was no help. The last location update was when he was last home, and when I try to locate him it will say "Air Tag not in range" and "continue to move around to connect". I've tried restarting the Air Tag but that doesn't help. He was missing in the woods for hours one day and no matter how close I was to his location or how many times I tried to refresh the Air Tag on the Find My App it just kept saying not in range. Hopefully Apple can fix this issue as I know many people buy Air Tags to put on their pets, and there's no point if they don't work when they actually go missing!

How do you expect to get the location of the AirTag when your dog is wondering in the woods? What possible way does the AirTag have to update its location in the middle of the woods with no iPhones around?

Nope.

my husband and his cousin took ours for a 15 minute drive, and it never updated. When they got home, and in range of my phone, it finally updated. Some in the thread speculate it is to prevent stalking, so once it ‘detects’ the phone once, that phone won’t send another location. Also, you can’t ‘share’ a tag with others, so you can’t have the van keys with a tag that your whole family can access. (Which you can with Tile.)

They basically don’t work.

Because you need to understand how the AirTag was designed to work, and not demand that it works the way you want it to work.

If you want it to work the way you want it to work, then invent your own tracking tag.

The tag sitting in the car is not going to give you any reliable location because the Bluetooth range is blocked by your car. If you want to track your car, buy a cheap Android phone and plug it in an inconspicuous place inside your car (or unplug it and hide it somewhere). You will be able to pin-point the location of your car to a foot, using the "Find my device" feature from Google. You can buy a cheap Android phone for this purpose for under $100 and get a cheap pre-paid SIM for it.

I don't know why it's so confusing for you. The Tag can't detect an Apple product unless its within maybe 30 feet. For example, my car was sitting on a service lot with high traffic and the tag didn't update for 48 hours. Cars driving by couldn't ping it. I drove near it and couldn't Ping it either. You have to almost walk right up on it. The range is weak! Simple as that.

Did you ever figure anything out? It is pointless to own an AirTag that only updates when you are near it. Defeats the purpose of it completely on anything that moves out of your home.

We put ours in our sons backpack so we can watch the bus but it literally doesn’t update location the entire 45 minute transit until he gets home what a waste of money apple screwing us again

Hi, There.

I had the same issue and I was able to fix the problem following the instructions here How to reset your AirTag - Apple Support

Hi, in my opinion it will only update its location using the network of all other Apple devices, when you mark it as LOST. Then it will be telling you regularly, where it is.

Your AirTag location will be updated as long as who’s iOS are running on the latest software with there Bluetooth on and connected to the internet

Try turning on “Notify when found” on the AirTag in the app, and see if the location updates now. I’m experiencing this bug when I use my iPad to update to location periodically.

I have also placed several on my dogs after one was gone for two days last month. The problem is they don’t update for up to 28 minutes. I know that they are within half a mile because two of the dogs are with my wife even though she has an iPhone. I’ve called Apple twice to find out how often air tags update their position and all I get are the usual suggestions to make sure she is using the most recent software version (she is), reset the air tag using the removal and insert the batteries 5 times (I have), toggling location services, blue tooth, and Find My on both phones. (I have). I never get an answer from Apple about how often air tags update themselves. I don’t think the first level of Apple support personnel know the answer. They referred me to a higher level of support and disconnected me. They never called back.

We are facing a similar issue: we bought an Airtag for our cat. It was attached to a safety collar, we guess the safety mechanism kicked in as she returned home without the collar. We know the Airtag is somewhere in the neighborhood because when you walk around it sometimes (once very hour or so) reports its location. But when you walk up to that location it is not there, the location is no longer updated and when you try to play a sound you get the 'Airtag not reachable, move around to connect' error..

Yeah, I found out today that you can’t make them sound when they are out of range with the phone they are paired to. That’s a very strange excision on the part of Apple. You should be able to send the the command to play sound, and when there’s an iPhone in range, that command should be proxied to them.

Thank you all for sharing! I am so angry after reading all of these posts. Waste of $100. It was suggested to us that we use these to keep in our children’s backpacks, and they are also not updating. All hardware, firmware, and software are up-to-date. Maybe Apple can use some of their $200 billion in cash to fix the simple problem.