What if you have an Android phone?

I think AirTags are kind of dumb. They’re expensive enough that the only thing I’d use them for are key fobs, but, in Canada, we have War Amps who do a low tech version that makes more sense IMO.

They give you a “dumb” tag that has a unique number on it. Anyone can drop a found set of keys in any mailbox and they get sent to War Amps who sends them back to the owner. You don’t get real time tracking, but there’s no e-waste or batteries to worry about.

War Amps solve a very different, much simpler problem. They don't help me find the keys dropped between sofa cushions or left in my car. They require somebody else to do work on my behalf to get me my keys, like go to the post office. I can't see the realtime location of a thing with a War Amps tag. They're not useful if somebody intended to steal the item with a War Amps tag.

> What if you have an Android phone?

From the article:

> "Non iPhone users, Apple created an app for androids for this very reason called Tracker Detect"

They made Tracker Detect for Android inferior to the protections they give to iPhone users.

How is Tracker Detect inferior to Find My? And is it a limitation of Android's background bluetooth APIs?

Tracker Detect's lack of automatic scanning is not due to anything about the Android platform, since AirGuard exists as a free and open source Android app that scans for AirTags, Tiles, and other potential Bluetooth tracking devices in the background without needing user interaction.

AirGuard: https://github.com/seemoo-lab/AirGuard

In addition to automatic scanning, AirGuard has maps showing where and when each tracking device was detected. AirGuard also allows Android users to (manually) make AirTags emit a sound through the app as soon as they are detected, while Tracker Detect forces the user to wait 10 minutes after AirTag detection.