Learn about safety hazards associated with tracking your kids and pets using AirTags, Apple’s tiny personal item trackers.
Don’t track your kids and pets with AirTag
Apple advises against using AirTags for tracking children and pets. The company argues that an Apple Watch set up for the Family Setup feature is a better solution for monitoring kids’ whereabouts. Its executives Kaiann Drance and Ron Huang discussed some aspects of the AirTag in an interview with Fast Company.
They said parents shouldn’t use the AirTag to track their small children, underscoring that the company designed the accessory to track items, not people or pets. As for strapping an AirTag to your dog or cat, the executives say pet owners ought to make sure that their moving pet is within range of any devices participating in the Find My network, including their own. Otherwise, its location cannot be tracked.
How Apple’s Find My network works
The Apple Developer website explains in the Find My Network section that tracking relies on crowdsourcing. Basically, hundreds of millions of Apple devices opted into the Find My network around the world help people like you and others to locate lost or misplaced items that are out of range. The Find My network is end-to-end encrypted to maintain privacy.
The AirTag itself uses Bluetooth for proximity information and Apple’s U1 chip with Ultra-Wideband technology to power and Precision Finding. An iPhone-only feature, Precision Finding is available in the Find My app. It displays the exact distance and direction to a lost item, guiding you through a combination of sound, haptics, and visual feedback.
Ultra-Wideband is supported on all iPhones from the iPhone 11 lineup (2019) onward, except the iPhone SE. It’s available nearly everywhere, except in a handful of countries and regions listed on Apple’s website.
AirTag pricing
AirTag is available in packs of one and four for $29 and $99, respectively, on apple.com, in the Apple Store app, at the company’s retail stores, and through its authorized resellers and select carriers.
Also, check out: How to fix AirTag not connecting to iPhone or updating its location