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Comment by TuringNYC | Hacker News Reader

Can you name some alternatives with a decent network?

If the item has its own mobile network, i'm expecting an extra $20/mo for a phone plan (at which point, comparing to a fixed cost of an AirTag isnt valid.)

If it doesnt have a mobile network and relies on the mesh, then, is there any mesh available? Apple's mesh is global and pervasive.

And if it provides neither mobile support nor mesh, it isnt useful for anything except lost keys in a house.

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>i'm expecting an extra $20/mo for a phone plan

I'm sure you can get prepaid/IOT plans for less, eg. https://www.hologram.io/pricing/flexible-data

Thank you for sharing this, this looks fantastic! I wasnt aware of this and I rescind my previous comment!

Thought this would be good for a solar IoT camera then realized it would be $400/per gig. Yikes, though it's good for extremely low bandwidth devices.

Yeah, looking on Amazon now, the ones referenced that are $29.99 or lower all seem to require an additional subscription. Obviously, AirTags require an Apple device, but still function with phones as old as the 6s, which can be had for under $100. So even assuming you want an AirTag and need to acquire a phone, the AirTags come out considerably cheaper after just a few months.

Well, i'm not counting the phone (pretty much ANY tracker requires a phone/computer to view results) which I assume is a given. I'm specifically speaking about the phone PLAN which is where the real money goes. A phone service plan will cost $20/mo in the US easily, so thats $250/yr forever. At this point, tracking luggage/bicycles isnt cost effective...the tracker starts to become more expensive than the tracked.

The AirTags are awesome because ANY phone creates a mesh for them to broadcast.

UPDATE: per sister comment, see https://www.hologram.io/pricing/flexible-data

> If the item has its own mobile network, i'm expecting an extra $20/mo for a phone plan (at which point, comparing to a fixed cost of an AirTag isn't valid.)

Some phone plans will give you additional data only sim card and only charge you the cost of the bandwidth (Google Fi does this). You can also get data only plans that are intended to used with Vending Machines and IoT devices (I guess a tracking device on the Internet is a IoT device).

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