My wife has ADD and she loses items often. Tiles aren't very loud and are flaky, we don't have an iPhone to use Airtags. I'm too exhausted to try to master the math needed to locate Bluetooth beacons, but I wish I could. I'd love for there to be a "just add 4 small Bluetooth boards" kind of software project, but it doesn't seem to scratch that itch for most open source devs.
Rather than using Bluetooth connection strength, it uses Ultra Wideband for precision location. This works on time-flight using the speed of light delay like GPS. When you open the Find My app it very quickly knows the exact distance to the AirTag, and then as you walk around it uses your observed change in position to determine the exact direction the AirTag is from you.
It's really cool tech! You need to use the "Find" feature in the Find My app and not the "Play Sound" feature. And it requires an iPhone 11+ with an H1 Ultra Wideband chip in it. Cost is probably on-par with setting up various bluetooth boards around the house, and way more accurate. Though not as much hackery fun.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband#Real-time_locat...
I don't think there will be equivalent alternatives, at least not ones with ultra wideband precision location functionality, availability, acceptable price, and robustness.
On the other hand there does seem to be some UWB support in some Android that might work with Tile's UWB: https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-enable-uwb-on-android-a...
Why are you so confidently spreading misinformation? Samsung SmartTag+ exists for years now with this precision and capability for Samsung Android phones.
Where does this wish to spread baseless misinformation come from?
You could have just pointed out the Samsung product.
Where?
"confidently" doesn't assume intent. "misinformation" doesn't assume intent.
But it's also a more complicated point than you're giving credit for. That comment directly addresses lack of knowledge and accuses people of negligence, not lying. I do not parse it as an accusation of intent, and given the followup here I don't think izacus sees it as an accusation of intent either: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42669379
But even if it is an accusation of intent the only accusation is deciding to be reckless. Which seems pretty justified to me.
(And there is a flagged comment that I have a big thing to say if you make me, but I'd rather we just ignore that comment as a separate thing.)
How come you are so certain what the person was trying to say without asking a clarification question first?
It’s got ultra wide band finding which is nice, but you really need every single android device to have a truly comparable network.
https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/feature-enha...
Anyhoo, back in the day I was messing around with beacons and can tell you it's fairly easy to get them working. I wrote a small program to get my laptop to act like a beacon and used some random "bluetooth tracker" on my phone which would give the approximate distance to said beacon. Then it's just a matter of walking around watching the distance measurement.
I'd think of 2 or 3 AA batteries stuck to a small UWB PCB and stuck with tape of suitable type to the tool.
Are 10$ each doable? I don't see why not, but can't find any board akin to a Bluepill or ESP32-VROOM or PiPico containing the HF part.
The idea would be with base stations that can see each other well enough to synchronize and perform role-reversed pseudoranging to the tracker.
An ESP32 with a battery controller (wemos clone) + a little pillow cell would be around 6€ each (less if you buy in bulk).
If the base stations are fixed units that mechanically hold to the outlet, noting down with a reference image for easier finding where exactly they're plugged in lets one skip the GPS walk step for next year.