new | show | ask | jobs Github

withinboredom 6 days ago

Unless you're my son who has to buy a new bicycle lock every month because he loses his bike keys.

▲

egypturnash 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Get your son a key ring with a chain and make him attach it to his bag or his pants somewhere.

▲

burnt-resistor 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Tile Pro and AirTag on the keys, and probably on the bike too.

▲

withinboredom 6 days ago | parent [-]

AirTags require people having iphones. Tile requires people with the app. I've lost things with both these items on them and never saw a ping from them ever again.

▲

burnt-resistor 6 days ago | parent [-]

Well, yeah, there are limitations to everything. They're not going to work on stolen devices when they're overtly advertised in cutesy keyfob holders that say "throw me away first". Use your brain because you have to disguise them on some objects.

AirTags and Tile Pro work fine wherever there are other people. They're not going to work in the Atacama.

They worked fine every time I used them. I recently sent a laptop to France and included one of each. Sometimes the Tile pinged and sometimes the AirTag pinged, but they worked really well across continents.

I also have about 4 of each in a vehicle left unattended for a while in a parking garage that doesn't have a great deal of people around it. And all of them ping at least once a day. The Tile Pros have ~100m LoS range which are quite a bit more than previous ones from years ago.

▲

withinboredom 6 days ago | parent [-]

I dropped one on a keychain on a sidewalk. It never pinged. That was an AirTag.

The other was the time I left my car keys on top of my car. Someone took the keys and put them in a random nearby business’s lost and found. The tile never pinged over the course of days and I had to find it the old fashioned way.

These things never worked for me, but it’s good to know that mail delivery people use these apps/devices that will let you track your packages in realtime.

	▲	burnt-resistor 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I didn't realize I dropped AirPod Pros in a case with an AirTag. I watched them bounce around inside an unoccupied Google building like it was picked up by Google's security people. Then, I watched it commute to a residential area of a smaller town. The defunded local police wouldn't even possibly look into it until 48 hours later and only if they wanted to, and the smaller town police wouldn't do anything. It pinged for a day or two afterwards like someone had thrown it into a/their neighbor's trash can. Lesson: Don't lose shit.

▲

arcanemachiner 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Combo lock