If they need to rely on their own GPS and internet uplink rather than just bluetooth, they would be much more expensive
If you exclude the time to dev the software, design the PCB, and assemble the tracker then you can knock up a NB-IOT module + GPS module + Microcontroller & supporting parts (to tie the two modules together) for about $30-$35 in small quantities, keep your data usage low and you can throw in a pre-paid IOT-NB sim for about $15.
EDIT: Its not gonna be as small as a AirTag, But if you wanted to tag something like a car you could get it into a small enough box to easily hide under it.
EDIT The 2nd: Throw in a movement detector, keep everything asleep unless its moved, before firing up the GPS/modem write your code so not to power up the GPS/Modem up unless a certain time as passed since the last known location fix, when you do fire up the GPS compare the location to the last known location so you only need to phone home if the distance as changed by a certain amount and you could get a decent battery life.
(not that I've thought about this...)
Pretty much no regular stalker is going to design and build their own GPS+cellular tracker. Even if someone were to do that and then sell them online, the barrier to finding and buying those are still probably going to be higher than getting an AirTag. And the battery won't last anywhere near as long as well. And also consider that the software running on it, as well as the cloud service that lets you check the location, doesn't just magically appear either. Someone has to build and host that as well. Even a lower-tech solution that just emails a location report every few minutes still requires work to build.
Yes, it's absolutely possible, and not super difficult, to track someone using a GPS+cellular device. But it feels really disingenuous to claim that tracking people was just as easy to do for your average stalker pre-AirTags.
Oh yeah, Was just pointing out that the pricing of such things is dropping like flies.
> Pretty much no regular stalker is going to design and build their own GPS+cellular tracker.
Agreed, again was just pointing out the pricing of parts.
> Yes, it's absolutely possible, and not super difficult, to track someone using a GPS+cellular device. But it feels really disingenuous to claim that tracking people was just as easy to do for your average stalker pre-AirTags.
I don't think I did claim that. I wasn't trying to claim that. Maybe thats just the limitation of using text.
They're on Amazon, for $50-150 [0]. The first result for "GPS tracker" I found has 10 days of battery life, which is a fair negative, but you can do a lot to someone if you follow them for 10 days.
[0]: https://smile.amazon.com/LandAirSea-Waterproof-Magnetic-Pers...