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This tag has an U1 chip using Ultra Wide Band (UWB) which means that iPhones 11 and above also equipped with those chips will be able to locate those tags from

This tag has an U1 chip using Ultra Wide Band (UWB) which means that iPhones 11 and above also equipped with those chips will be able to locate those tags from 80m away with a +/-30cm accuracy. U1 UWB uses short pulses at 6.24GHz and 8.2GHz and positioning is done by combining time of flight (ToF) and angle of arrival (AoA).

snailmailman 5y ago
I'm really curious how accurate this ends up being. Bluetooth location is one thing, but I've never seen bluetooth that can do anything more accurate than "X meters away" These UWB chips claim to do "X meters away in Y direction". The direction aspect could be revolutionary if it works well. AirTags is the perfect use for it as well.
- andiareso 5y ago
  "+/- 30cm" ?
  - snailmailman 5y ago
    Compared to a dot on a map that usually just narrows it down to an entire building? If the sound is muffled and you can’t hear it, this sounds like it could narrow it down to a specific room or maybe even area of a room. Which is a huge improvement. I haven’t personally used a Tile before, but my impression was “you get what building it’s in, then have to search everywhere til it’s in earshot”
    - oh_sigh 5y ago
      The finding app has an arrow on it, pointing you towards the signal. So maybe the map has only building-level resolution, but once you're in the building you just follow the arrow until it says you're standing on it.
    - slimsag 5y ago
      Tile trackers are accurate within +-90cm based on some empirical tests I did for using them to monitor my cat's activity throughout my house. So Apple's +-30cm does seem to be a fairly major improvement, if true.
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    That’s a 60cm range, which is non trivial. It’s about the length of a human arm. Many desks are 120cm wide, so half of that.
- ericklestrange 5y ago
  im also super curious of this, i wanted to do a DIY angle of arrival necklace some time ago and last time i checked you required a whole mini antenna to achieve that!
- andrewl-hn 5y ago
  Our company experiments with indoor location tracking using UWB beacons. We've got a few demo kits from different vendors to test it out. Overall, If you have a UWB receiver devices installed ~ every 4-5 meters (15 feet) you can triangulate beacon's position to a pretty precise degree (around 10 cm / 4 inches accuracy). You can even detect the height of a beacon above the floor. However, triangulation is the key. Often we have to install extra receivers just to deal with big columns and barriers, sources of intense electromagnetism (like big electric engines or microwaves), or some materials (glass doors turned out to be a major problem, wooden doors - not so much). I'm not sure how accurate a positioning can be with your phone acting as a sole UWB receiver. Clearly Apple can make it work sufficiently well for an everyday use, but it won't be as precise as they show in carefully constructed demos.
mentos 5y ago
I wonder if you can repurpose these for motion capture? Glue one to each joint and increase the update frequency?
person_of_color 5y ago
So UWB trades off accuracy for range. But the range issue is rendered moot by the fact there's a huge iDevice network. Nice..
paultopia 5y ago
Does anyone have any clue about whether other devices with a U1 chip will also be able to do that? (I'm thinking about people like me, who have an apple watch 6---which does have the U1 chip---but are a few generations behind on the iphone)
- rx_tx 5y ago
  I would be surprised if the next airpods case doesn't have the UWB location feature as well.
ericklestrange 5y ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jSDtUOQXJmo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jSDtUOQXJmo two antennas using time of flight to achieve angle of arrival
neop1x 5y ago
UWB is also integrated in the newest Samsung phones https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/8/22373410/samsung-galaxy-smarttag-plus-uwb-ar-bluetooth-price-release-date https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/8/22373410/samsung-galaxy-sm...
dakial1 5y ago
I wonder if Apple will use this product as a Guinea Pig to test the possibility of building a device-to-device network over UWB. From what I've read (I'm not technical) this was tried sometime ago by a consortium but they gave up over the difficulties of sending communications over UWB. Maybe Apple will manage a breaktrough by pouring money and brains over it like it did with M1?

snailmailman 5y ago

I'm really curious how accurate this ends up being. Bluetooth location is one thing, but I've never seen bluetooth that can do anything more accurate than "X meters away" These UWB chips claim to do "X meters away in Y direction". The direction aspect could be revolutionary if it works well. AirTags is the perfect use for it as well.

andiareso 5y ago
"+/- 30cm" ?
- snailmailman 5y ago
  Compared to a dot on a map that usually just narrows it down to an entire building? If the sound is muffled and you can’t hear it, this sounds like it could narrow it down to a specific room or maybe even area of a room. Which is a huge improvement. I haven’t personally used a Tile before, but my impression was “you get what building it’s in, then have to search everywhere til it’s in earshot”
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    The finding app has an arrow on it, pointing you towards the signal. So maybe the map has only building-level resolution, but once you're in the building you just follow the arrow until it says you're standing on it.
  - slimsag 5y ago
    Tile trackers are accurate within +-90cm based on some empirical tests I did for using them to monitor my cat's activity throughout my house. So Apple's +-30cm does seem to be a fairly major improvement, if true.
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  That’s a 60cm range, which is non trivial. It’s about the length of a human arm. Many desks are 120cm wide, so half of that.
ericklestrange 5y ago
im also super curious of this, i wanted to do a DIY angle of arrival necklace some time ago and last time i checked you required a whole mini antenna to achieve that!
andrewl-hn 5y ago
Our company experiments with indoor location tracking using UWB beacons. We've got a few demo kits from different vendors to test it out. Overall, If you have a UWB receiver devices installed ~ every 4-5 meters (15 feet) you can triangulate beacon's position to a pretty precise degree (around 10 cm / 4 inches accuracy). You can even detect the height of a beacon above the floor. However, triangulation is the key. Often we have to install extra receivers just to deal with big columns and barriers, sources of intense electromagnetism (like big electric engines or microwaves), or some materials (glass doors turned out to be a major problem, wooden doors - not so much). I'm not sure how accurate a positioning can be with your phone acting as a sole UWB receiver. Clearly Apple can make it work sufficiently well for an everyday use, but it won't be as precise as they show in carefully constructed demos.

mentos 5y ago

I wonder if you can repurpose these for motion capture? Glue one to each joint and increase the update frequency?

person_of_color 5y ago

So UWB trades off accuracy for range. But the range issue is rendered moot by the fact there's a huge iDevice network. Nice..

paultopia 5y ago

Does anyone have any clue about whether other devices with a U1 chip will also be able to do that? (I'm thinking about people like me, who have an apple watch 6---which does have the U1 chip---but are a few generations behind on the iphone)

rx_tx 5y ago
I would be surprised if the next airpods case doesn't have the UWB location feature as well.

ericklestrange 5y ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jSDtUOQXJmo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jSDtUOQXJmo two antennas using time of flight to achieve angle of arrival

neop1x 5y ago

UWB is also integrated in the newest Samsung phones https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/8/22373410/samsung-galaxy-smarttag-plus-uwb-ar-bluetooth-price-release-date https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/8/22373410/samsung-galaxy-sm...

dakial1 5y ago

I wonder if Apple will use this product as a Guinea Pig to test the possibility of building a device-to-device network over UWB. From what I've read (I'm not technical) this was tried sometime ago by a consortium but they gave up over the difficulties of sending communications over UWB. Maybe Apple will manage a breaktrough by pouring money and brains over it like it did with M1?