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Comment by mrfusion | Hacker News Reader

What technology does tile use? Bluetooth? How will airtags work?

Bluetooth. I think AirTags will most likely use some combination of bluetooth and the new U1 chip included in the iPhone 11 Pro which should hopefully give it more granularity than a plain old bluetooth tracker would.

The ultra-wideband U1 chip is going to be the main push behind AirTags. As I understand it, with 3+ devices close to each other, you can pinpoint the exact location of any of the other devices, so I imagine there will be an app for finding your AirTags in AR by moving your phone's camera around.

I really hope this is the case. The biggest issue I always have with the trackers is the granularity just doesn't seem to be fine enough.

Mind you I have never tried Tile, so they may be better in that regard, but there is only so much you can do off a single bluetooth signal

I've tried Tile, it'll tell you if it's within 15-20 feet and then has an audible noise. Kinda OK, but not great.

It also uses Apple's anonymizing tracker functionality so that any iPhone that is near the lost tile can report it's location back to the owner.

Does this also allow other people to locate your device(s) easier?

I was thinking of Tesla Radar [1] which allows people to track Model 3 via Bluetooth (cannot be disabled by user).

[1] https://www.teslaradar.com/

Probably Bluetooth 5.1 with AoA/AoD extensions for direction finding, now that it's standardized. You can expect similar functionality in the next Android version, as soon as the API is defined by Google...

https://www.silabs.com/products/wireless/learning-center/blu...

Note: ultra-wideband U1 chip is not suitable for general tag finding, as it requires practically uninterrupted line-of-sight because of the very high frequencies.

Speculation: This could be powered by the underreported U1 chip that included int he latest iPhone models. Ultra-wideband positioning power driven by this chip would allow spatial location of these tags potentially. Many people speculated this was going to happen when the chip was first announced.

Tile uses bluetooth. (at least the versions I used a few years ago did)

The key is that you’ll be able to find AirTags anywhere in the world. Not just near your phone. It’s a game changer. And they do this not by giving each tag WiFi or 3G, they do it by leveraging a Bluetooth mesh network of all iOS devices out there. So if anyone is near your lost AirTag with an iPhone you’ll be able to find it. Imagine the coverage of the global iPhone user base.

And it’s all done securely so that no individual phone that’s participating can know what it’s even doing.

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