Airtag not updating location

My sister (has an iPhone with wifi and Bluetooth on, and find my network too) and has my keys with an AirTag but the location doesn’t update. What’s happening?? It has more than 10 hours without updating

what’s the point of the airtag if i have to be close to it to know it’s location? i bought the **** thing to know where things are when i’m NOT right next to them.

But you see, Apple advertised the AirTag as a device that can update its location periodically thru other Apple devices nearby. My generous expectation is at least once every 10 or so minutes in a busy international airport, yet it could take hours to update itself. That means if someone stole my wallet I would not be able to locate it in a reasonable time. If that’s not called false advertising I don’t know what to say to you.

Apple Airtags are junk. They are inaccurate and don't work 90% of the time.

I found that AirTag did not update the location information as mentioned.

When I am walking in the night market where are about 200 people around and for sure there are people using iPhone and my wife is also using an iPhone with find my network enabled, and the airtag is in the beg with her.

At some point she walked far away from me, and I try to locate her with Airtag, and the airtag did not update location for about 30 min time.

This situation doesn't seems to match the explanation given above?

Same. I bought two. One for my husband car incase it’s stolen and one for my son when he’s at school. I wasn’t $40+. 14 days without the AirTag being updated. It does not show accurate locations or the AirTag ever moving. It’s a complete waste of money.

I feel like AirTags are 1000% false advertising. I’ve even seen commercials where they show you can see the AirTag moving. Totally be. I’m at the point where I’m gonna sell all my Apple stuff and go back to Samsung.

I don’t think you understand the issue. The AirTags no longer update for many even close to range of others with find my iPhone network. Example mine won’t update unless I’m close to it, I share the location of the AirTag with my wife, her AirTag location screen won’t update even though it’s updating on my screen. It’s like the find my iPhone network isn’t broadcasting when it senses an AirTag. Then randomly it will update. I’m thinking maybe people work older iOS are still broadcasting while anyone upgraded is not. Seems everyone is having this problem and are just stopping using their AirTags.

Actually this is exactly what Apple says on their website.

Get by with a  little help from  hundreds of millions of friends.

When youʼve left something far behind, like at the beach or the gym, the Find My network — hundreds of millions of iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices around the world — helps track down your AirTag. And itʼs designed to protect your privacy every step of the way.

so although it is not meant specifically to track a person or pet it is specifically designed to track a lost inanimate object. It’s not a huge leap to go from missing cooler to missing dog at the beach.

I put one on my dog, fully knowing it was not gps and would not be 100% reliable. However, it would be better than nothing on the chance he did run off. But it has proved to be utterly useless. If my wife walks or takes him somewhere, I can see her exact location but my dogs AirTag is maybe 20 miles away and not updating. Now let’s assume she took my car keys and not my dog it would be the same situation.

My wife has a 'car keys' Airtag shared with me that I personally set up for her and tested. I can see her phone (her location at work) and the air tag is on her keys in her purse next to the iPhone 14+ with latest OS. I am on iPhone 13 Pro Max, latest iOS. Soooooo. Apple what is the problem? Are you listening? What is your resolution.

I have the same problem. I used airtags (I have 8) in the last 2 years without problem, now it seems not working. When one of my devices is close to the AirTag, it updates the position, when I am far, and I am sure there is an apple device close to the airtag (my brother's iPhone), it doesn't update the position.

The scheme should be this:

1. airtag (that is paired to my iPhone, or better, to my Apple ID) uses any apple device with active bluetooth connection to "send" his position
2. apple system should forward this position to my iCloud
3. my device(s) should sincronize the position from iCloud

It seems that the point 2. is working ONLY if there is close to the AirTag one of the devices of the SAME Apple ID, and so syncronized using the same iCloud ID.

Wondering if a lot of people on this thread bought these new. I’ve been using this service since early last year and they were working fine. Leave one in each of my kids bags, drop off to school, notified left behind, location updates in find my app, and from home could get semi regular location info even seeing them move when coming home on the bus. Since I want to say Nov/Dec 2023 the behaviour has changed. They are not updating location for days or more at a time. I can literally drop the kids off and the tags will notify left behind but still show as being at home. This should not be how they work and understand why people are questioning apple products.

Same with mine I have one on my car in case it gets stolen and it only works when I’m maybe in the same parking lot or a mile or so away. My

mum borrow my car and she went maybe 15 or 20 miles away and I cannot track it, it won’t update.

So Apple intended an AirTag to be used when what???? I don’t think apple even knows how an apple tag was intended to be used lets be honest, whole bunch of words and formulas leading again to confusion thats why no more excitement for apple products being launched people just tire of their Bull ….

sidra5212 wrote:

I wish I had known this before buying 4x airtags :( .

Yes, you should have done a bit more research before you purchased these AirTags for the purpose of tracking your kids.

Two things to keep in mind:

1. As mentioned by Chris_V89, an AirTag relies on Bluetooth to send it location information. It sends that information to a device (another iPhone, for example) that is participating in the "Find My Network." That signal is broadcast approximately every 5-10 mins to save on battery life. In turn, the device that receives the signal must have either a cellular or wireless connection to the Internet to pass that information to the Apple servers. That is where the Find My app on your iPhone would "see" it.
2. An Apple AirTag is not designed to track people or pets. Apple has specifically implemented a number of features to discourage using it for this purpose (at least, the people part.) Yet, folks still try, and they end up posting here thinking that this is a problem with the tags. It's not; they are working as intended by Apple.

The solution? Well if tracking is a requirement, whether it would be for a person, pet, or vehicle, then you should consider getting a device that is designed for that purpose ... one that relies on GPS, not Bluetooth, to relay location information. A perfect example of this for, let's say, vehicles is the LoJack.