Airtag Find My - Shows with me, but Find function turns up nothing.

Question

Level 1

34 points

Airtag Find My - Shows with me, but Find function turns up nothing.

iOS 17.5.1 on iPhone 15.

I know it's not supposed to be used for pet tracking, but I have an AirTag on my cat's collar, mostly to find the collar when she loses it, which she did today.

Previously when this happened, I'd open up Find My, walk our property, and eventually the app would get a signal and I could track it down.

Today, no such luck and thought maybe she'd wandered so far when she lost it, it was off our property. BUT, whenever I go onto our back porch (which she frequents) Find My says the AirTag is "With You-Now".

I set the "Notify when found" for the AirTag, and if I go back to the spot on my porch, I get the notification that "AirTag has been found". But still, "Find" turns up nothing. Of course, "Play Sound" won't work either.

Checked location settings for Find My, restarted the iPhone, still no joy.

Is there any chance a recent iOS update has broken this? Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

iPhone 15, iOS 17

Posted on Jun 4, 2024 12:53 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

LakeLifeLG Author

Level 1

34 points

Jun 6, 2024 10:11 AM in response to Tesserax

And to close the loop on this, I just walked my neighbor's property and found the AirTag/collar. Apparently, Find My WILL show the device as being "With You" based on the last known location, given there are no other iPhones near the AirTag. I'm not sure that is what I would expect, but know that I know, I know.

Thanks!

Reply

Answer 2

Tesserax

Level 10

157,896 points

Jun 6, 2024 9:19 AM in response to LakeLifeLG

LakeLifeLG wrote:

Guess I'm a little surprised nobody seems to know anything about this, but on follow-up, is there a chance that the "With You - Now" status showing on Find My is basing it's info on the last known location of the AirTag?

Yes, that is possible.

You didn't mention in your post the size of your properly or if you are in a rural / remote location where there are not a lot of other folks (with iPhones) around. I don't need the details, but if this is the case, then an AirTag will be pretty much useless to you when it is outside of the Bluetooth range of your iPhone.

That is because, when the tag is outside that range, it relies on Apple's crowd-sourcing "Find My Network," which is made up of literally millions of iPhones to relay the tag's ID, along with that phone's GPS location to the Apple servers. This is where you would see the tag's location update with the Find My app on your iPhone.

Reply

Answer 3

LakeLifeLG Author

Level 1

34 points

Jun 6, 2024 7:22 AM in response to LakeLifeLG

Guess I'm a little surprised nobody seems to know anything about this, but on follow-up, is there a chance that the "With You - Now" status showing on Find My is basing it's info on the last known location of the AirTag?

Reply

Answer 4

LakeLifeLG Author

Level 1

34 points

Jun 6, 2024 9:27 AM in response to Tesserax

Thank you for the reply. We're on 2.99 acre wooded lakefront property in rural SC. We have adjoining neighbors that have iPhones, but those would normally be well outside of the bluetooth range of the AirTag. Like I said, she usually loses her collar somewhere on our property, so this is a first.

Again, thanks for the info. We'll just consider it lost.

Reply

Answer 5

Tesserax

Level 10

157,896 points

Jun 6, 2024 11:26 AM in response to LakeLifeLG

I'm glad you were able to locate the tag/collar.

One advantage of the newer iPhones, including your iPhone 15 model, is that it supports "Precision Finding." With that, when your iPhone is within range of the missing AirTag, precision finding will help locate it by "guiding" you to its location.

Reply

Airtag Find My - Shows with me, but Find function turns up nothing.

Similar questions