Car drivers are hiding Apple AirTags in their vehicles for safety—but you shouldn’t
When Victoria—a safety tips expert on Instagram—created a “parking in sketchy areas” video, she made a point to throw an Apple AirTag under her floormat. The implication is that she could use the “Find My” app on her iPhone to locate her car if it gets stolen. In real life, it’s a bad idea to use an AirTag to prevent a car theft.
Your AirTag will snitch on you
First and foremost, if a thief successfully nabs your car and drives away, their phone will ping. The notification will says “AirTag Found Moving With You.” A Google Android phone user may get an “Unknown tracker alert” notification.
Why will the AirTag snitch on you? Because bad actors could throw an AirTag in someone’s purse or trunk to figure out where they live. This gadget is not engineered to track a stolen car. If the thief sees the AirTag alert, they can open the FindMy app and make the AirTag emit a warning sound so they can find it and discard it. Or they can take it over and pair it with their phone instead.
The problem with using an Apple AirTag to track a stolen car
Second of all, the AirTag won’t make a great tracker. As my colleague Erik Sherman wrote, an AirTag works by connecting with nearby Apple devices via Bluetooth to triangulate its location. In rural areas there may not be enough devices to work properly.
Finally, a purpose-built GPS tracker for a car often records route data for you to later use in court. An AirTag only shows you its current location, and only while you are actively using the FindMy app.
At the end of the day, an AirTag is the wrong tool for this job. And Apple currently charges $20 for an AirTag. But you can get purpose-built GPS trackers for cars for $12 or less at Walmart. If you pay more than that, you’ll get a better device with a longer battery life. But even the cheap ones may work better than an AirTag.
