"Unknown accessory detected near you" on iPhone

This is happening to me and unlike everyone commenting that it's possible that it's their Airpods. I didn't have mine or any other apple device and received that alert. It's frustrating and scary that a device was following me and I have no way of knowing who because all I get is "UNABLE TO CONNECT TO SERVER".

This reminds me of a similar situation of someone that shared with me that his iPhone was prompting "Unknown Accessory Detected" as well while he was traveling in his car. He couldn't figure out what was going on until he found an AirTag hiding in the corner of his car trunk. He suspected his wife put it there. XD

Though, at the end of the story, he proceeded to update his device to the latest iOS to get the maximum security and disabled his Find My network for the time being. ( AirTags uses the Find My network to track )

Good morning gh!

I would suggest you first rule out that you are being monitored against you will, which is the less likely option here.

To do that, try to just go out for longer (while preferably covering some distance) and leave your AirPods at home. If you have the same problem as me you should get a notification (at the end of the day for me) telling you that there is unknown accessory near you which will also tell you the route it took with you.

So I would check once you get this notification whether it is your AirPods by looking at the route in the FindMy App.

If it is your AirPods, you should only get a notification once you get home.

It you left your AirPods home and still get that same notification I would contact law enforcement to let them help you find whatever is causing this!

I hope you understand what I mean as english isn't my first language.

Also I hope this helps! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here!

Have a good day

When you say “family shared account” do you mean you have one Apple ID that is shared between 2 or more people, or you each have individual accounts that are grouped with Apple’s Family Sharing feature?

If you mean you have multiple users on one Apple ID that is not a recommended practice. If you are not doing this, and have Family Sharing, ignore the rest of this post.

Apple IDs are personal; they shouldn’t be shared any more than you would share a toothbrush. If you share an Apple ID with someone else many bad things will happen. Each user should have their own Apple ID, then you can create Family Sharing→What is Family Sharing? - Apple Support. That way you can share what you want to share and not share what you don’t want to share.

It is OK to share an Apple ID among devices used by one person, such as an iPhone, an iPad and a Mac; in fact, it is a very useful thing to do. But not between devices used by different people.

Here is Apple’s FAQ: https://appleid.apple.com/faq/#!&page=faq. See the 4th bullet item.

You CAN turn off JUST the “FindMy Network” w/o disabling the normal “FindMy” used to find - and secure - your phone.

Settings -> AppleID[Name] -> Find My -> Find my iPhone -> FindMy Network

Hello! I have the same problem and I am pretty sure what causes it is

not spyware (like an unwanted AirTag) but AirPods Pro! If you have

AirPods Pro there seems to be an issue with the firmware - this is not

officially confirmed by Apple, but several users on reddit reported this

issue and all of them had the AirPods Pro in common. If you have them

they are likely to cause this issue and you can turn off notifications

regarding that. I hope this helps!

Ever figure this out cause it’s happening to me. Shows me getting in my truck and it tracks me the whole time. Won’t let me disable or learn more about the device. When I try I get a cannot connect to server.

Hello! I have the same problem and I am pretty sure what causes it is not spyware (like an unwanted AirTag) but AirPods Pro! If you have AirPods Pro there seems to be an issue with the firmware - this is not officially confirmed by Apple, but several users on reddit reported this issue and all of them had the AirPods Pro in common. If you have them they are likely to cause this issue and you can turn off notifications regarding that. I hope this helps!

The same thing happened to me today, I do not have any AirPods Pro, I was using at the time my 1st gen AirPods. Apple was unable to help as they didn’t had any practical advice. It’s really creepy and scary, I walk to work and school everyday and now I’m scared. Do you have any other recommendations?

Same thing is happening to my mom! First pinged her car in the driveway (or so it looks from the map) around 4am yesterday- randomly didn’t ping throughout the day then around 4pm (when she got off work) it started pinging again following her from our home, around the town, and back. Last pinged around 9:25pm last night. We weren’t able to find anything on the car & it just keeps saying “cannot connect to server”. Is this something people can pause and unpause or how do these even work?

Hi there!

I actually did see this on a friends iPhone (12) they were all worried about it, but I believe it was indeed related to a pair of AirPods they have. Anyhow I had them sign out of their Apple ID in Settings > Name > Sign Out, and sign in again, the alert was then gone and never came back.

Sign out of iCloud on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, or Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208242

(I usually keep a copy of the data, then when prompted to sign in again “merge” it to prevent duplicates, etc.).

First priority is safety of course, but more than likely this is a glitch, give it a try, if it’s gone from Find My, I’m sure that’s the case. Hope that helps.

This certainly sounds very similar an AirTag security alert.

Here’s some additional info which might not have been provided to you.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212227

I think I figured it out. My wife was borrowing my AirPods in the mornings then putting them back in my vehicle where I keep them. I think they may have synced to her phone as well. Anyways I had her remove the device from her phone and I reset my AirPods and so far so good. Haven’t gotten the unknown device since. Fingers crossed.

I left my AirPods at home and the find my app shows them with me. So I guess the find my app is malfunctioning. A coworker tried to see if this is happening to her and she has her AirPods with her and the find my app shows them at another location. Further proof there is something malfunctioning.

thank you for your response Mauritz79