cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/34586015
Curious on suggestions for airtags, or similar, for tracking important things on flights or other cases where losing the specific item would be too much of a financial / sentimental loss. Anyone doing this from Linux, or from graphene? How is it?
I track AirTags with the android AirGuard app. It might be able to do more maybe?
I use Google FindMy devices which use the same tech as airtags. Still Google, which is bad, but at least I don’t have to buy an iPhone.
Which tag devices would you use?
Pebble bee I think? They’ve been fine. They’re rechargeable, which is nice.
Interesting! Looked through the Home Assistant forums and seems there is little to no support for them as a product.
I’m not sure what you mean by that, there’s a plugin that adds FindMy network support to Home Assistant that seems to be up to date. If you mean Google doesn’t support them, I’m also not sure what you mean by that. The app is on my phone, up to date, and tracking devices, same as the Apple network, just with Google devices. If your issue is Pebblebee, there are multiple different brands you can buy from depending on your needs, but generally, a tracker is a tracker.
As far as how well they work to track lost items, I’m honestly not sure, as I haven’t lost anything yet. They should be comparable to an Airtag, as they can ping off of all Android devices unless someone opts out.
but generally, a tracker is a tracker.
Most tracker brands for Android only ping from phones that have their app installed. Not all Android devices. Since there is no brand that has an overwhelming market share that means the chance to find a lost Android tracker is much smaller than the apple ones. I have some, but I only trust them to find my keys within Bluetooth range.
I meant a Google FindMy compatible tracker, they ping off of all Android devices, I believe it’s opt-out to be a part of the network. It’s honestly a failure on Google’s part that so many don’t seem to be aware that Google has an alternative to AirTags.
I use a LoRaWAN tracker and Traccar. But you shouldn’t take it on international flights due to frequencies being different in other countries.
Are there any (ideally waterproof) compact devices with long battery life (months~years)?
On the website I only found a long list of supported devices with brand name search and protocol type. grep showed no LoRaWAN devices though?
My use-case is theft tracking. I only need the device to be able to locate itself after a theft actually occurred and I request it remotely. (Perhaps also periodically with very low frequency.)
Are there any (ideally waterproof) compact devices with long battery life (months~years)?
I’ve mostly built my own, but I did order a SeeedStudio T1000-A a few weeks ago, and it’s arriving next week.
It’s IP65 rated and estimated 4 months battery (with 1 hour updates). It also has WiFi that you can use with Google’s geolocation API when GPS is unavailable.
However like all LoRaWAN stuff, you do need coverage of a LoRaWAN provider. I use The Things Network since it partners with my city, but Helium is another option (although not currently supported by Traccar).
On the website I only found a long list of supported devices with brand name search and protocol type.
Traccar just supports The Things Network webhook API, in the TTN Mapper format (another tracking service, although public). Anything supported by TTN Mapper should work with Traccar.
Thank you!
I’ve found the Seedstudio thing after posting this too and it looks like the thing I’d be looking for!
What’s your experience w.r.t. coverage?
Obviously that highly depends on where exactly you are – you certainly aren’t going to have coverage in the outback – but I’m mostly concerned with places where people actually go and would take my bag/laptop/bicycle to. 'Stralia is going to generally be quite different from Germany too of course but it would be a good reference point from which I could extrapolate.TBH, Australia is a bit of a mess, we used to use AS923, but we now use AU915, a lot of gateways are older (AS923), and some are newer (AU915), however AU915 is allowed to use more power, and AS923 is weaker.
As for my experience, I had to buy a gateway for my house, but a train station near my workplace already had a gateway professionally setup, and my university has a gateway too. So anywhere I’d usually take my backpack has coverage.
You can use a service called TTN Mapper to see the gateways near you with a heatmap to show their coverage.
I’ve also just left a comment on the Traccar forums with some useful info regarding the T1000.
You know… I know how to take care of my stuff, without making Apple or anyone else rich. ;-)
Doesn’t help with check-in luggage
Well, don’t put anything in your luggage that you can’t afford to loose. People strangely enough still traveled before any kind of tags (besides those in paper and plastic, put on the luggage). :-)
That’s very unhelpful. Sometimes traveling is not optional and you can’t take everything in the cabin.
People strangely enough still traveled before any kind of tags
People also used to travel on wooden boats with a fair chance to never reach the destination alive. How does that help anyone?
Right, what about in the case of something like luggage that was checked onto a flight and lost. Wondering about this scenario, which has happened twice.
If don’t trust the airline, don’t put something in your luggage you can’t afford to loose. Take responsibility for the things you have, and if you need it, get an insurance for your luggage.
Take responsibility for the things you have Which is kinda the point of a tag of whatever sort
afaik airtags are apple-proprietary, so someone would need to reverse-engineer them first. that’s probably not a small ask. i haven’t personally looked into it though, so here’s hoping! 🤞
The system was reverse-engineered almost as soon as it was released. You can do the reverse of what OP is asking using OpenHaystack (track a non-Apple device using Apple’s Find My Network).
