[HN Gopher] Track your devices via Apple FindMy network in Go/Ti...
___________________________________________________________________
Track your devices via Apple FindMy network in Go/TinyGo
Author : deadprogram
Score : 345 points
Date : 2025-01-11 12:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| a12k wrote:
| Incredibly cool. I am constantly amazed by these efforts and the
| find my network is a really impressive thing. What's stopped me
| from using anything like this ever is the fact that I'm confident
| that at some point Apple will either embrace this sort of
| piggybacking on the network and open it up more officially, or it
| will ban any Apple ID that has ever been associated with such
| things. Right now they know about this and are not commenting
| either way.
|
| Hope in the future either Apple supports this more officially, or
| there is a way to use it with no direct link to my Apple ID or
| account. Until then, I am a spectator in these things.
| jcutrell wrote:
| I think there is some positive effect potential for Apple to
| let this slide. The broader this network is, the more adoption
| it receives. P2P as a super-structure has always been a bigger
| than vendor problem; adoption by any means is likely an
| allowable tradeoff, especially since Apple doesn't have to do
| the work here.
|
| Eventually they will capitalize more on the mesh density,
| rather than crushing the adoption now.
| malmeloo wrote:
| Except that custom tags like these do not require an Apple
| device in order to use them, so the size of the network is
| not increased. They only increase the load on the network.
| FindMy is not a P2P/mesh network; all these tags do is
| broadcast keys which are picked up by iDevices, which then
| upload those reports to Apple.
| koolba wrote:
| Are the keys not tied to known apple products? Or do you
| make them up when you first register a device?
|
| Trying to understand why apple doesn't (or can't?) already
| reject broadcast data from keys that are not apple
| products.
| prepend wrote:
| I would guess because they don't care. The marginal cost
| is zero and I think they would only bother if someone
| ddoses or it becomes an issue.
|
| Until then, more devices are probably positive for
| reducing potential pitchforking.
| malmeloo wrote:
| Two master secrets are randomly generated when pairing
| the AirTag for the first time, which are then saved to
| the iCloud keychain. Those secrets are then used to
| generate a new keypair every 15 minutes (at most), and
| the public key is broadcasted by the tag. Not only does
| Apple not know what the master secrets are in the first
| place (because they're stored in the keychain), but
| that's also an insane number of keys to compare against,
| with no real possibility to precompute them. And that's a
| big win in terms of privacy.
| malmeloo wrote:
| The process of requesting locations for a certain tag is not
| tied to any Apple Account. In the instructions in the README,
| when logging into macless haystack, you can just use a burner
| account.
| mmooss wrote:
| How is privacy protected? I wouldn't want everyone tracking
| my airtags.
| menzoic wrote:
| >I wouldn't want everyone tracking my airtags.
|
| That's kind of how the whole system works.
| mmooss wrote:
| I thought it was designed to prevent unwanted people from
| tracking you. If I bought an airtag, you could track it?
| Without authentication or authorization?
| malmeloo wrote:
| Only if you have the private key belonging to the AirTag
| at the time of location capture. Anyone can download
| encrypted location reports for any AirTag found in the
| wild, but only the owner can decrypt them with the
| private key.
| hattmall wrote:
| So how does one get the private key for an airtag without
| associating it to their account?
| malmeloo wrote:
| By dumping it from a Mac. But that's not what this
| project does, it uses diy AirTags without rotating keys
| so you don't need to do all that.
| jki275 wrote:
| The data passes through any devices in the vicinity -- but
| they can't read the data unless they've got the private key
| to that tag.
| dwaite wrote:
| It is a cryptography heavy, privacy-oriented protocol
| somewhat specific to the behavior apple wants, which is
| tied to social behavior. E.g. it is meant to track lost
| items, not stolen items and not people.
|
| My understanding of how it is all supposed to work:
|
| You get a key-generating-key at provisioning time. The tag
| itself has three modes depending on whether it is in
| contact with one of your devices, and further whether it
| has been out of contact more than a certain period of time.
|
| When not in contact, it will advertise itself with a
| rotating public key based partially on a rotating Mac
| address. An Apple device which sees it will encrypt
| location data based on that key and send it to apple to
| store under that public key as a mailbox. A device which
| continues to see it while moving will start to alert the
| person holding that device that there may be an AirTag
| tracking them.
|
| The tag itself has NFC functionality which provides
| information for helping find the owner, and on Apple's side
| this is meant to be tied to a real identity to aid LE if
| there's an abuse scenario.
|
| After a certain amount of time not seeing another device,
| an AirTag will start to make sounds to alert people where
| it is when an Apple device comes into range.
|
| When you want to find your item, you anonymously query it
| under its rotating key information, and use your knowledge
| of the private key generation to get location information.
| Since there's nothing Apple uses to correlate these
| entries, there may be multiple records over time although
| Apple's UI only shows the newest entry found.
|
| So yes, there's anonymity in being near devices but limited
| so that someone can know they are being tracked. There's
| anonymity in querying location. However, there's not meant
| to be anonymity with physical access.
| yardstick wrote:
| What about the Apple account of the tag itself?
| malmeloo wrote:
| These custom tags are not tied to any account; Apple can't
| tell whether a tag found in the wild is "legit" or not, so
| registering it is not necessary. You can use your main
| account if you want, but if you request too many location
| reports too often, they _will_ ban your account.
| ustad wrote:
| Where does it say about burner account?
|
| "You will be asked for your Apple-ID, password and your 2FA"
|
| You mean get another apple device and setup another account?
| malmeloo wrote:
| It doesn't mention a burner account anywhere, but as the
| author of FindMy.py, I happen to know how this stuff works
| :-). But yes, create a new account (either through an Apple
| device or the website or w/e), attach it to an Apple device
| or hackintosh at least once, then log out again.
| tossit444 wrote:
| Doesn't Apple force SMS 2FA on accounts? I remember
| trying to use Apple Music some years back and it needed
| me to give a phone number.
| ValentineC wrote:
| Yes, but phone numbers can be used across multiple Apple
| accounts.
| DanAtC wrote:
| What if they shitlist all accounts using the same phone
| number?
| nobunaga wrote:
| Is it just me or this whole find my network capability is a
| security nightmare? I mean I understand its usefulness but can
| the [insert authority here] just request apple to tell them where
| this person is even without cellular coverage? Ive decided to
| move away from the apple ecosystem either way because of this but
| it just seems to me to be a surveillance nightmare.
| rgovostes wrote:
| https://support.apple.com/guide/security/find-my-security-se...
| nobunaga wrote:
| Interesting thanks. I understand that its designed to be
| anonymous, but I guess it requires faith in Apple not
| complying to any forceful request from a security authority
| in the US to not modify it in secret.
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| Of course that can be said for nearly anything you own.
| iPhone, android, tablet, anything that is Bluetooth (for
| instance, your car), etc.
| givinguflac wrote:
| Given apples outright refusal to help the FBI previously I
| have more faith than other companies that they'll do the
| right thing. But nothing's perfect.
| rgovostes wrote:
| Cryptographers who design these systems do consider the
| threat of a malicious future iteration of the company and
| thus try to reduce the trust in a centralized authority.
|
| Apple did fight in court to not have to crack the San
| Bernardino shooter's phone, which probably didn't garner
| much sympathy with the general public, specifically against
| government power to compel them to make changes to subvert
| security.
|
| They also publish a Transparency Report about government
| requests they've received and how many they've responded
| to.
| oefrha wrote:
| > Cryptographers who design these systems do consider the
| threat of a malicious future iteration of the company and
| thus try to reduce the trust in a centralized authority.
|
| It's no use. All the opaqueness to Apple relies on
|
| > This private key pair and the secret are never sent to
| Apple and are synced only among the user's other devices
| in an end-to-end encrypted manner using iCloud Keychain.
|
| Which is trivial to compromise from Apple. They do their
| best to minimize trackability from third parties though.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _Which is trivial to compromise from Apple._
|
| Explain this? Since both Apple and security researchers
| have worked on provable trust.
| oefrha wrote:
| Provable how? iOS software is closed source and
| unverifiable. New code can be added to send any data
| anywhere at any point. Explain to me how you prove closed
| source software won't send data under its control ever.
|
| And we don't even need to go as far as key exchanges, and
| forget about Find My. Maybe those are better protected
| and it's harder for them to pull a sneaky without someone
| noticing. The location data of your phone isn't in Secure
| Enclave and the OS can do whatever the hell it likes with
| it, good luck verifying a huge closed source OS which
| phones home all the time isn't sending your location
| home. At the end of the day you're trusting them (or just
| don't care because you probably aren't pissing off TLA,
| which is certainly true in my case), provable security is
| extremely limited.
| snuxoll wrote:
| iCloud Keychain escrow data is encrypted by HSM clusters
| that have administrator keys destroyed; if Apple tried to
| compromise a keychain by installing malicious HSMs users
| would first get notified that their data had been lost
| due to failed/destroyed HSMs.
| oefrha wrote:
| See my response to sibling. Explain to me how you prove
| iOS software can't be malicious.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| Explain to me how you can prove...
|
| 1. You aren't a troll posing as a human
|
| 2. That if you are a human, that you won't die in the
| next hour.
|
| 3. That if you don't die today, that the Earth won't be
| impacted by an asteroid this year.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| It didn't garner sympathy with the public because they
| had previously lied to the public that they were
| technically incapable of complying with those data
| requests. After the government explained how Apple could
| comply, Apple shamefully removed the erroneous claim from
| its website without informing its customers who had
| believed that claim.
|
| All the big tech companies that have user data publish
| government data request transparency reports.
| jki275 wrote:
| That statement simply isn't true.
|
| The government attempted to force them to write a new
| operating system for them that would allow them to get
| the data on the phone. This was never about the San
| Bernardino phone, everyone knew there was nothing of any
| use on it and everyone involved was dead. It was about
| getting precedent on record that they could force a
| company to backdoor their OS on a court order. They
| eventually dropped their request when it became obvious
| Apple wasn't going to roll over for them.
|
| Your post reeks of some personal vendetta against Apple,
| and has no factual basis.
| oefrha wrote:
| > The government attempted to force them to write a new
| operating system
|
| Which they are absolutely capable of, but refused to that
| time. People in this thread keep talking about provable
| trust when the software is fully under Apple's control,
| which is just puzzling. It's still a "trust me bro".
| Whether you trust them due to past track record is
| something else. In fact, that you even need to bring up
| their refusal as evidence means you don't believe they're
| technically incapable of complying.
| jki275 wrote:
| You're not understanding the issue here.
|
| The government wanted Apple to backdoor iOS at their
| command.
|
| Apple told the government to go fuck themselves.
|
| None of that addresses whether it was technically
| possible or not. You've made up a theory in your head
| about how it was possible based on what some dumbfuck
| government lawyer made up to file with a court, but that
| doesn't make any of it true.
|
| And again, none of this had anything to do with that
| phone. The government wanted to establish precedent that
| they could order Apple to create a backdoored iOS for
| them, so that they could use that to spy on people. They
| gave up when it became obvious Apple wasn't going to roll
| over for them and rewrite iOS so they could use it the
| way they wanted to.
|
| Your beliefs about some theory about Apple claiming
| something about "provable trust" or whatever are really
| probably unfounded and don't even make any sense.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| If the statement isn't true, then why did Apple stop
| making that claim? It's because my statement is true.
| Apple was capable of getting the data.
|
| It is possible for Apple to build a device that Apple
| wouldn't have been able to access the data on, as they
| claimed. That isn't what they provided to their
| customers.
|
| You're using bad faith arguments to defend a multi-
| trillion dollar company that pushes a restrictive model
| of computing on its customers for its own benefit for
| what purpose?
| lathiat wrote:
| If you want to learn more about how this all works in video
| form, there was a talk at 38c3: https://www.youtube.com/wat
| ch?v=nWQcgZfxkOM&pp=ygUMMzhjMyBma...
| Terretta wrote:
| Which mobile phone maker do you have more faith in? Which
| telco?
|
| Apple have done work, and published tools for researchers,
| to make it so they can't "modify it in secret". The tools
| for security research community help verify that and "keep
| them honest". For instance, this is partly what the prompts
| about new devices or log in on other devices are about,
| there's a key exchange happening, and you get told. You can
| also exchange keys with Messages contacts to verify you're
| talking to them. You can turn on iCloud Advanced Security
| and Apple don't get even your backup keys. Also see the new
| Lockdown Mode.
|
| Granted, Apple can change their minds and become anti-
| privacy or pro data-brokers and ad-tech, but some of these
| proofs would break so folks would know.
|
| Anyway, if the government wants to know where you are, they
| can just ask the Chinese who've been watching Americans'
| cell phone identifiers move around.
|
| In seriousness, the telcos already sell* this position data
| to data-brokers and law enforcement have portals to just
| watch you scurry around, even without a warrant.
|
| * Sometimes telcos share your location data in ways that
| aren't "selling" so they can say they don't sell it. But
| the data goes and telcos derive value in exchange.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Just because someone doesn't trust Apple to build a
| worldwide live location tracking system doesn't mean they
| don't want someone else to build a worldwide location
| tracking system. There's an inherent risk to worldwide
| location tracking systems and while I think the genie is
| out of the bottle now, I would prefer there not to be a
| worldwide location tracking network at all.
|
| Airtags have become a commodity at this point and despite
| attempts to prevent this, criminals are already using
| them to follow potential victims to their homes. I know
| GPS trackers and a bunch of different find-my style
| networks existed long before Apple brought the airtag to
| market, but those didn't turn up in purses and cars quite
| as often as Airtags now do.
|
| Apple tries their best to make this thing secure and
| safe, but there's only so much safety they can add before
| the devices become useless.
| malmeloo wrote:
| I think it's worth mentioning that FindMy consists of two
| distinct "networks"; there's the one where other Apple devices
| find your stuff, and another where your devices upload their
| locations straight to Apple. The FindMy app combines these two
| networks to show the most recent location. As far as I can tell
| this project only uses the former network, which would require
| an explicit backdoor due to the way it is designed. But if
| you're trying to defend against government agencies, that
| latter network is probably more of your concern.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The system is designed specifically to make this impossible.
|
| Your tag doesn't know its position, it simply broadcasts its
| own, _rotating_ public key. Since the key changes randomly (in
| a way that you as the legitimate owner can predict), a third
| party can 't easily follow the tag.
|
| Other devices see that key, and share their position,
| _encrypted with your tag 's public key_.
|
| That makes it relatively hard to get the data, essentially
| impossible without forcing Apple to re-design the system and
| push malicious updates, which is generally considered as
| something that goes beyond what normal subpoenas can do.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Apple could be subpoenaed to look at the account holder's
| registered tags still, no?
| crims0n wrote:
| If the US government is subpoenaing Apple on your behalf,
| you probably have bigger problems.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The US government has told Google to query its location
| database for any device in the vicinity of certain crimes
| before. There's no way they're not trying to get Apple to
| do the same.
|
| If Apple designed they'd crypto system as well as they
| claim that's not viable at this moment in time, but the
| government can certainly try.
| HALtheWise wrote:
| No, because Apple doesn't have the private key of the
| account holder, and so can't see which rotating codes are
| associated with that account holder since it's all
| encrypted.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| This gives them a list of tags, but not their location. The
| keys to decrypt your location are (AFAIK) held on your
| iPhone.
| jki275 wrote:
| Anybody can write a subpoena, but Apple is on record as
| having absolutely no problem telling anyone who does so to
| go fuck themselves and then backing it up with litigation.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Is it just me or this whole find my network capability is a
| security nightmare?_
|
| Settings - _your_name_ - Find My - _device_ - toggle off
|
| If you don't trust that this will really disable the feature,
| then you are going to have to think hard about every electronic
| device you own.
|
| Do you trust the firmware in your Android phone? What about the
| non-open-source modem chip? What about the SIM card, which runs
| Java? Are there microphones you haven't noticed built in to
| your TV remote? (Many have them.) Your toaster likely has a
| chip in it more powerful than a networked DOS-era computer.
| (Mine does.) How do you know it's not joining a nearby wifi
| network and sending out information?
|
| Ever since the China/iCloud thing, I don't fully trust Apple.
| But among big tech companies, it's certainly the one that I
| trust the most.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| No they can't. Apple doesn't know who has which tag. It's built
| with privacy in mind. I know Apple listen touts privacy while
| having ulterior motives but I looked at the technical design
| specs and this is pretty great
|
| I doubt Samsung and Google have gone to such lengths with their
| trackers.
| andy_xor_andrew wrote:
| Apple always seems to design services the way a privacy-
| obsessed nerd would, (if you forced said privacy nerd to
| design a P2P tracking network).
|
| It's like, "oh, you want all your photos to be searchable,
| like 'dogs' or 'Eiffel tower'? Fine, we'll create an on-
| device embedding of each photo, use homomorphic encryption so
| you can share it with us and we can match it to its contents
| without even knowing what they are, then we'll send that back
| to your device for storage. Oh, and we'll use a relay so we
| don't even see your IP address while doing this, not that it
| matters since we can't decrypt the content anyway." It's
| pretty wild, like they could have easily skipped all this and
| only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of users would
| even know or care.
|
| In fact, I was pretty annoyed that the news story from the
| above example was "Apple is looking at all your photos and
| violating your privacy", since they spent so much effort
| doing it the right way, in a way that _respects_ your
| privacy, it makes it less likely they will bother going
| through the effort again
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/03/apple_enhanced_visual.
| ..
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| You misunderstood the point of the news story. Apple
| automatically opted in everybody's iPhones to sending data
| to Apple, unlike every other company that requires explicit
| opt in.
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| > unlike every other company that requires explicit opt
| in.
|
| Not defending Apple here, but that's silly. User
| hostility and auto gobbling up data without consent is
| perfectly normal for most companies out there.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| No other company automatically sends data about pictures
| users take on their phones off the phone. Not a single
| one. All required explicit opt-in except for Apple.
| Hence, the news story.
| andy_xor_andrew wrote:
| I guess it's a matter of informing the public that
| homomorphic encryption means no information is visible to
| Apple, so Apple never receives any information about your
| pictures at all.
|
| I guess you could make the argument "well what if one day
| they stop using homomorphic encryption", but that
| argument doesn't make much sense since 1) why would they
| and 2) you could already ask the same question today
| "what if they just started sending info anyway"
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Still. Asking the user is important. Even when there
| isn't anything you can see.
| izacus wrote:
| > I doubt Samsung and Google have gone to such lengths with
| their trackers.
|
| You are wrong and it's trivially verifiable. You can watch
| this years 38c3 video comparing them or read the nicely
| public specification.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I was mainly thinking of Samsung's SmartTag, not Google's
| recent venture. I have looked for info on the SmartTags in
| the past and couldn't find it. I have some Samsung ones
| myself.
|
| I didn't look at the Google ones because I don't use a
| Google account. So I couldn't use them anyway.
|
| But good to hear that they did design it well, I'll check
| that video.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Google's trackers are more private than Apple's to the point
| of stupidity. https://www.androidpolice.com/google-find-my-
| device-privacy-...
|
| The PMs don't understand that they should be catering to the
| people purchasing the devices.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah I gather now. That's pretty cool for a company like
| Google. I still think they're evil though. But in this case
| it appears they did a good job.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| All companies are evil. Google tends to provide more
| control to the user than Apple, so from a consumer's
| perspective, it is less evil than Apple.
| bitpush wrote:
| I was without until you made that swipe about Samsung and
| Google. Don't be a fanboy. No company is your friend.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I'm absolutely not an Apple fanboy actually. I use Samsung
| phones. And FOSS on my computers. I moved away from iOS and
| Mac years ago because I found them too locked in.
|
| I don't trust Samsung and Google as far as I can throw them
| but apparently in this case they did an ok job. And
| unfortunately there's no meaningful alternative to the
| duopoly of iOS and Android. So I was left with two bad
| choices.
|
| But I don't trust any big tech no. It's just really hard to
| do without them, sadly.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I hope in the future we can determine the position of beacons to
| within a cubic metre or less.
|
| My wife has ADD and she loses items often. Tiles aren't very loud
| and are flaky, we don't have an iPhone to use Airtags. I'm too
| exhausted to try to master the math needed to locate Bluetooth
| beacons, but I wish I could. I'd love for there to be a "just add
| 4 small Bluetooth boards" kind of software project, but it
| doesn't seem to scratch that itch for most open source devs.
| lolinder wrote:
| I also have ADHD, am also constantly losing things, and I've
| had success with the Pebblebee tags. I have a tag on my keys
| and a card in my wallet. The noise is loud enough that I can
| hear it on a different floor in an old home with thick brick
| walls.
| stackskipton wrote:
| That's AirTags with modernish iPhone now.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| If you know that the item is inside your apartment, you _only_
| need the UWB part, which is quite orthogonal to this project.
| namibj wrote:
| I'm looking at setting up a trial system for 39c3 to allow
| hunting down tools given out from the logistics department
| (pallet jacks, ladders, if cheap enough pallets that get left
| unattended). Timeline for that is 10-11 months from now for
| when hardware has to exist and work.
|
| I'd think of 2 or 3 AA batteries stuck to a small UWB PCB and
| stuck with tape of suitable type to the tool.
|
| Are 10$ each doable? I don't see why not, but can't find any
| board akin to a Bluepill or ESP32-VROOM or PiPico containing
| the HF part.
|
| The idea would be with base stations that can see each other
| well enough to synchronize and perform role-reversed
| pseudoranging to the tracker.
| franga2000 wrote:
| While definitely not as cool, this might be achievable with
| the same indoor positioning method the c3nav app uses,
| which would probably be accurate enough to track larger
| items at least to a few meters. After that, you can
| hopefully spot them easily, or maybe even use Bluetooth
| hot-or-cold to track them down further.
|
| An ESP32 with a battery controller (wemos clone) + a little
| pillow cell would be around 6EUR each (less if you buy in
| bulk).
| crazysim wrote:
| My partner and I are also Android only and honestly, I'm
| thinking about simply picking up a smashed up iPhone 11 or 12
| mini and exclusively relegating it for precision finding needs
| with AirTags.
|
| I don't think there will be equivalent alternatives, at least
| not ones with ultra wideband precision location functionality,
| availability, acceptable price, and robustness.
|
| On the other hand there does seem to be some UWB support in
| some Android that might work with Tile's UWB:
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-enable-uwb-on-android-a...
| mook wrote:
| My understanding is that the Motorola trackers have UWB but
| phone support isn't widespread yet. I haven't looked deep
| enough to see if that satisfied your other criteria though.
| namibj wrote:
| https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/uwb#uwb-
| e...
| izacus wrote:
| > I don't think there will be equivalent alternatives, at
| least not ones with ultra wideband precision location
| functionality, availability, acceptable price, and
| robustness.
|
| Why are you so confidently spreading misinformation? Samsung
| SmartTag+ exists for years now with this precision and
| capability for Samsung Android phones.
| pests wrote:
| Sometimes people are just incorrect and no ill intent.
| izacus wrote:
| I just don't get why I see so many of people on this very
| site (surprisingly usually Apple or Tesla fans) that so
| confidently spread misinformation about things they don't
| have knowledge of and didn't even attempt to check.
|
| Where does this wish to spread baseless misinformation
| come from?
| pests wrote:
| Sometimes people are just wrong. There doesn't have to be
| an ill intent behind it. Educate and move on. What else
| can you do?
| izacus wrote:
| Which is exactly what I did. And it made people here
| angry.
| mulmen wrote:
| You made an assumption of intent.
|
| You could have just pointed out the Samsung product.
| baxtr wrote:
| How come the first thing you assume is ill intent?
|
| How come you are so certain what the person was trying to
| say without asking a clarification question first?
| Kirby64 wrote:
| I wouldn't call Samsung smart tags equivalent. They're
| locked to Samsung phones, require other Samsung phones
| (that have accepted the terms of service for broadcasting
| location) to be nearby, and also seem to have limitations
| around finding if you're in an area with no network
| connectivity.
|
| It's got ultra wide band finding which is nice, but you
| really need every single android device to have a truly
| comparable network.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| They're also unreliable in my experience. My mother has a
| galaxy phone and new galaxy tab, so I got her the Tag 2.
| I set this up for her and around 2 weeks later she said
| she couldn't find her keys. The "ring" option disappeared
| from the app. In order to get it back she has to find the
| keys, and re-pair the tag. Yep, find them by yourself to
| fix the ring function. Also I found the directional
| finding to be dreadful. And overall the device has a less
| than desirable delay. My tile pro is much better in every
| regard. I thought that the Samsung would have a better
| coverage but it turns out that the software must be
| installed for it to work! So it's restricted to Samsung
| devices that have that software installed.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| I'm also a misplacer-of-items. I hot glued an AirTag to the
| inside of my glasses cases but was frustrated at the poor
| signal. Turns out most cases are made of thin metal. Switched
| to a case with a cardboard core and it works great now.
| willseth wrote:
| AirTags are generally loud enough to solve that problem. I wish
| they put the same speaker in the ATV remote.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Not the same, but there are a few options for remote cases
| which support AirTags:
| https://www.elago.com/products/2021-apple-tv-siri-
| remote-r5-...
| varenc wrote:
| The new ATV remotes support semi-precise location finding.
| Not as precise as AirTag and UWB, but the Find My app will
| tell you as your get closer to your ATV remote. I'm assuming
| it just makes use of Bluetooth connection strength. Sadly
| only the most recent remotes seem to support this.
| kbaker wrote:
| Hopefully the next few years will see Bluetooth Channel
| Sounding take off more. Promises to give every BLE device a
| similar (but less accurate than UWB) distance estimation
| feature.
|
| https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/feature-enha...
| UncleEntity wrote:
| I'm guessing the 'math needed' is for using stationary beacons
| to triangulate your location. Even Apple just sends the
| location of the receiving phone which is why there are stories
| of the cops showing up at some innocent person's house because
| the neighbor kid found some headphones on the bus.
|
| Anyhoo, back in the day I was messing around with beacons and
| can tell you it's fairly easy to get them working. I wrote a
| small program to get my laptop to act like a beacon and used
| some random "bluetooth tracker" on my phone which would give
| the approximate distance to said beacon. Then it's just a
| matter of walking around watching the distance measurement.
| varenc wrote:
| AirTags and an iPhone 11 or newer should exactly solve this for
| you. Lets you locate AirTags to within a foot.
|
| Rather than using Bluetooth connection strength, it uses Ultra
| Wideband for precision location. This works on time-flight
| using the speed of light delay like GPS. When you open the Find
| My app it very quickly knows the exact distance to the AirTag,
| and then as you walk around it uses your observed change in
| position to determine the exact direction the AirTag is from
| you.
|
| It's really cool tech! You need to use the "Find" feature in
| the Find My app and not the "Play Sound" feature. And it
| requires an iPhone 11+ with an H1 Ultra Wideband chip in it.
| Cost is probably on-par with setting up various bluetooth
| boards around the house, and way more accurate. Though not as
| much hackery fun.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband#Real-time_locat...
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-find-my-101
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Ooooh it looks like you can now use it without a Mac? That would
| be amazing. Because Apple trackers cost only a few euro
| (aftermarket ones of course)
| tomr75 wrote:
| Any recommendations?
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I just buy them in the shop. We have this shop called
| "Action" that sells a brand called "Fresh 'n' Rebel". They
| sell a pack of 3 tags for 16EUR. They work well. I have a
| bunch of them and also put some in some of my more expensive
| electronics so I can track them when they get stolen (with
| the speaker disabled of course)
| wielebny wrote:
| They work well but don't have the UWB part and need to have
| battery replaced every few months.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah true they don't last as long. I only have an iPad
| anyway so i don't care about the UWB but that's true,
| didn't think of that.
| CPLX wrote:
| Trying to parse this and can't tell. Can you use this with
| Apple's AirTags or do you have to create your own tracking
| devices?
| iJohnDoe wrote:
| I was wondering the same thing.
| deadprogram wrote:
| You do need to create your own tracking beacon using one of of
| the devices supported by the TinyGo Bluetooth package:
|
| https://github.com/hybridgroup/go-haystack?tab=readme-ov-fil...
| _-_-__-_-_- wrote:
| Story time. My wife and I were vacationing in Portugal last
| summer. She left her purse in a uber car on the way to the
| airport. The driver found the purse and dumped it after taking
| 20$ and some costume jewellery. We tracked it to an abandoned
| parking lot later that day using an AirTag and we ended up
| finding it using the Location app. We have AirTags in every bag
| now and we change the batteries on a schedule.
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| All my bags also now have airtags. I was at Sydney airport lost
| baggage area a few years ago waiting for a bag I'd found was
| there after hours of speaking to the airline and airport.
| Another gentlemen there told them that his item was there.
| They'd been evacuated from a plane in New Zealand a month
| before and left his iPad in the seat pocket, and had tracked it
| back using Find My to Sydney. He travels internationally
| multiple times per month and said airtags were the best thing
| he owned.
|
| I've since added them into all my cars, bags and a few
| honeypots embedded into high value items that might be stolen.
| marci wrote:
| How do you know it was the driver and not someone they picked
| up after you?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-12 23:02 UTC)