AirTags also have Precision Finding, but you must have one of these phones:
- Phone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max
- iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max
Supposedly, you can locate an item with an accuracy to an inch if you have one of those phones. With older phones, you can only see the general location and you can make it play a sound, so you hopefully you can locate the item by sound.
Because both my wife and I have older iPhones (mine is the 2020 iPhone SE and hers is the iPhone Xs), so the Precision Finding doesn't work with our iPhones. I stopped buying the latest iPhones some time ago. I am not going to shell out $1,000 for the latest iPhone, whereas I can buy a new unopened iPhone 2 generations ago for half the price, and it works just as well as the brand new one.
So, because we couldn't take advantage of Precision Finding, instead of buying Apple Air Tags I bought Chipolo One Tags. They are the first non-Apple tag compatible with Apple's Find Me via iCloud feature, but they don't have the Precision Finding feature in them (and neither do my iPhones). The benefit of the Chipolo One is that it has a hole in it, so you don't have to buy a case for each tag just to be able to mount it on a ring. Chipolo One are also water proof (just like Apple's Air Tags) and they sound louder than the Air Tags. Outside of the Bluetooth range of the iPhone they are paired with, Apple's Air Tag and Chipolo Tag function the same exact way. They use the same Apple's iCloud framework for reporting their location, and both of them have the same issue with very infrequent location updates.
Interestingly enough, I mounted a Chipolo tag on our dog's collar and paired it with my wife's iPhone Xs. After I take my dog for a walk and come back, I have an alert pop up on my iPhone that a tag not registered with my iPhone has been accompanying me, and when I tap on that alert, it opens the Find Me app with several options (Mute alert for today, Disable the tag, etc.). Along with those options, I also see an accurate route of my walk with the dog with multiple points connected together with straight lines. So, I know that within a 25-minute walk, my iPhone records at least 12-15 locations (every couple of minutes) and is able to chart my route on the map, but yet, my wife's iPhone barely gets one update of the location (and that is on a good day). So, I believe that Apple intentionally suppresses the frequency of the updates to prevent accurate tracking of another person by planting your airtag on that person's body or in his/her luggage. That does prevent being able to track a person in real time, but it also completely defeats the purpose of the location tracking feature in a tag. If someone steals your computer bag with a tag in it, you will not be able to track the thief. Apple had to walk a fine line here between the usability and the privacy, and - IMHO - they failed in both.
For Precision Finding, we use Tile tags, which work fine even with our older iPhones. Tile tags don't have the accuracy to an inch, but it can pinpoint a general area within the room where the Tile Tag is located, and it can definitely guide you to the correct room, using Bluetooth proximity indicator. Additionally, Tile now partnered with the Amazon's Sidewalk service, so some devices (like most Amazon's Echo smart speakers, Ring Floodlight Cam, Ring Spotlight Cam, etc. ) can function as Amazon Sidewalk Bridges and can assist in locating a lost Tile tag, which means that if a dog runs along a street with a row of houses on each side, chances are that the dog's location will be reported by at least one Amazon Sidewalk bridges installed inside or outside one of those houses. Amazon even advertises pet trackers compatible with Amazon Sidewalk.
I don't know which system is better at locating a moving object. I'd probably use both iCloud-comapatible tag (like Air Tag or Chipolo) and a Tile tag on the same pet at the same time.
