4 ms·

Unless I'm mistaken, he's being warned of being tracked by the AirTag beeping when moved, and displaying information on any NFC capable device (such as most And

by FabHK 6y ago

Unless I'm mistaken, he's being warned of being tracked by the AirTag beeping when moved, and displaying information on any NFC capable device (such as most Android phones).

TeMPOraL 6y ago
AirTags are talking regular Bluetooth 5, not some magic Apple variation of it, right? That would imply my Android phone should be able to see them. For example, I should be able to poke at them using nRF Toolbox app I have installed. (We have only so many iPhone users in Poland, and I currently live in a small town, so I can't just experimentally check it right now.) If that's true, then one should be able to write an app that scans for AirTags in the background and warns you about their presence. I'd hope someone will do this. I'd also hope this would eventually be included in the Android OS itself, perhaps as a generalized facility to detect Tile/AirTag-like devices around you. Long time ago, there were these things called "beacons", that IIRC started with Apple introducing iBeacon spec/protocol. They used BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) to announce themselves. Some of those were used for the purpose of tracking your belongings[0]. I assume AirTags must be substantially different from that, because saw zero mentions of the Beacons in articles and discussions about AirTags so far. -- [0] - I even bought a bunch of these on Aliexpress to play with, but didn't want to install the vendor's sketchy app, so I ended up not using them (but I could make them beep and give me some telemetry by poking them over BLE directly). They worked off a CR2032, but there was no "tracking network" back then - you'd connect these tags to your phone, and they'd just start beeping when they disconnected from your phone. A pretty unreliable design, given BLE can be flaky when mixed with apps, battery saving modes, and thick walls in an apartment. Unfortunately, all the non-sketchy makers of BLE beacons seem to have focused entirely on the retailer market - i.e. using them to push spam to your phone as you walk through a mall. I lost all my interest in that technology then.
- darkarmani 6y ago
  I guess you could jam BT5 as well.

by FabHK 6y ago

Unless I'm mistaken, he's being warned of being tracked by the AirTag beeping when moved, and displaying information on any NFC capable device (such as most Android phones).

TeMPOraL 6y ago

AirTags are talking regular Bluetooth 5, not some magic Apple variation of it, right? That would imply my Android phone should be able to see them. For example, I should be able to poke at them using nRF Toolbox app I have installed. (We have only so many iPhone users in Poland, and I currently live in a small town, so I can't just experimentally check it right now.) If that's true, then one should be able to write an app that scans for AirTags in the background and warns you about their presence. I'd hope someone will do this. I'd also hope this would eventually be included in the Android OS itself, perhaps as a generalized facility to detect Tile/AirTag-like devices around you. Long time ago, there were these things called "beacons", that IIRC started with Apple introducing iBeacon spec/protocol. They used BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) to announce themselves. Some of those were used for the purpose of tracking your belongings[0]. I assume AirTags must be substantially different from that, because saw zero mentions of the Beacons in articles and discussions about AirTags so far. -- [0] - I even bought a bunch of these on Aliexpress to play with, but didn't want to install the vendor's sketchy app, so I ended up not using them (but I could make them beep and give me some telemetry by poking them over BLE directly). They worked off a CR2032, but there was no "tracking network" back then - you'd connect these tags to your phone, and they'd just start beeping when they disconnected from your phone. A pretty unreliable design, given BLE can be flaky when mixed with apps, battery saving modes, and thick walls in an apartment. Unfortunately, all the non-sketchy makers of BLE beacons seem to have focused entirely on the retailer market - i.e. using them to push spam to your phone as you walk through a mall. I lost all my interest in that technology then.

darkarmani 6y ago
I guess you could jam BT5 as well.