Tracking your boat with Apple AirTag?

[ZGhost]

Well, I thought I’d share my experience with the group so will keep this post as short and as sweet as possible.

I’ve been looking for a tracking solution that incorporates some key and must have parameters:

1. Not needing to charge the device more than twice a year
2. Preferably min monthly cost or none
3. Small foot print
4. Reliable
5. I didn’t need it to track and send me updates every minute, only need reasonable intervals or when pinged
6. Need it to track my boat while stored in the storage facility in case the boat grew legs and decided to leave.

I knew AirTags were coming out and I opted to wait their release this year. In the meantime I have explored other options and while some were acceptable, none checked all my must have boxes.

Bought an AirTag and hid it in the boat and been testing it over a month now. I have to say I’m impressed! for $29 and no monthly fees, this tiny button checks all the boxes and then some.

If you want to protect your investment, this isn’t the tool, get insurance. If you want to minimize the risk of your boat being stolen, invest in multiple deterrent methods to make your boat less attractive for a thief who wants to steal a boat (coupler locks + wheel locks + chain locks + antitheft jack + etc.). But if you want to know where your asset is and want to track it in the event it left the location where you normally expect it to be, this is a good cost effective and reliable option to consider.

By the way, it doesn’t sound an alarm if you are disconnected from it for more than 3 days like they say. I think it’s algorithm is sophisticated enough to learn that it’s not tracking a moving object and thus it stays silent. But when it’s on the move, it will provide the needed updates providing someone with iPhone is nearby and we all know how many iPhones are in the massive ecosystem. I am not sure if it will start beeping after moving post 3 days or not, this is TBD. Either way, you’re still able to track the asset. There are solutions to silence it if you want by taking out the speaker magnet. It then becomes the hidden silent tracker but I didn’t do that since it’s not emitting any warning sounds yet.

Happy to address your Q’s?

 

[tdonoughue]

How long does it last, does it say?

We bought some of these little tags once (not the Apple ones, the Tile ones). A couple of years later, they send an email saying, 'oh, we have decided that your Tile may die someday from the non-replaceable battery running out, so we have disabled it. you'll have to buy a new one to continue.' One thing to say that on the front end (e.g. that you are getting a 2-year Tile). Quite another to find that out later after you buy a bunch of them. I was annoyed.

Any hint of that sort of thing with these?

 

[ZGhost]

How long does it last, does it say?

We bought some of these little tags once (not the Apple ones, the Tile ones). A couple of years later, they send an email saying, 'oh, we have decided that your Tile may die someday from the non-replaceable battery running out, so we have disabled it. you'll have to buy a new one to continue.' One thing to say that on the front end (e.g. that you are getting a 2-year Tile). Quite another to find that out later after you buy a bunch of them. I was annoyed.

Any hint of that sort of thing with these?

Per Apple, the expected battery life is 1 year. Easily replaceable with CR2032 battery.

 

[Beachbummer]

Tiles were only available sealed before, but now they make them with replaceable batteries...I bet they could be wired to a set of batteries to make it last longer with some rigging.

 

[Ronnie]

Thanks @ZGhost , I’m thinking about renting my boat out (through a broker) and this seems like a better alternative to reactivating the mobile drone system I had installed years ago, a lot less expensive anyway/no recurring use/license fee.

Actually, now that I am thinking about this, I’m going to get at least three (one for each Waverunner and one for the boat).

 

[ZGhost]

Thanks @ZGhost , I’m thinking about renting my boat out (through a broker) and this seems like a better alternative to reactivating the mobile drone system I had installed years ago, a lot less expensive anyway/no recurring use/license fee.

Actually, now that I am thinking about this, I’m going to get at least three (one for each Waverunner and one for the boat).

Agree, you just have to hide somewhere dry and hard to find. I am buying a 4 pack to use with my motorcycles, jet skis, and kids bikes. Will move them around between the assets when in use. Can’t beat that. My friend‘s 11 year old son’s $400 bike got stolen broad daylight from in front of his house, he would have easily tracked it and recovered it if he had an AirTag hidden somewhere on the bike.

 

[Ronnie]

I don’t like the surprise expenses like the one @tdonoughue had. I just went through the same thing with my ring doorbell and cameras (my fault for not doing my research). About a year in I got a message through the ring app that my own year subscription to their cloud service was over. My options were to pay $10 per device per year to keep the service or pass and really limit the functionality of the whole system. I paid, it’s less than $50 a year, for this year anyway.

 

[captainhook]

I have been considering this for my boat and WaveRunner also. Seems like a good, cheap solution, especially for the WaveRunner I sometimes take on vacation and am always worried about a quick thief as it sits in the parking lot.

 

[TimW451]

This is a good idea, but keep in mind that if a person with an iPhone steals your boat the AirTag will alert them to its presence. This is by design to prevent people from using AirTags to track people without their knowledge.

 

[captainhook]

This is a good idea, but keep in mind that if a person with an iPhone steals your boat the AirTag will alert them to its presence. This is by design to prevent people from using AirTags to track people without their knowledge.

View attachment 154510

Well that sure puts a damper on this doesn’t it?

 

[Beachbummer]

This thread got me thinking. A tile and 2 fresh D Alkaline batteries and some rigging and wiring ought to be good for 5+ years.

 

[TimW451]

Well that sure puts a damper on this doesn’t it?

I think it is worth doing, but we should be aware of the limitations. We’d all love to catch the person red handed, but getting the property back is the most important thing (or it should be). It’s like a dye pack in the bag of stolen money or an alarm going off. You aren’t hiding what you are doing from the thief, you hope it makes them stop/drop the stolen property so it can be recovered.

I’ve used Tiles, Chipilos, and some other things that work on aggregation and they all sucked for me. The only thing finding them was myself, but I don’t live in an urban environment, so I didn’t have a lot of hope. The ubiquity of the iPhone and all iPhones being automatic detectors should make these work much better.

 

[tdonoughue]

Tiles were only available sealed before, but now they make them with replaceable batteries...I bet they could be wired to a set of batteries to make it last longer with some rigging.

To be clear, the batteries on the Tiles did not stop or run out.

The company shut them down and would not let the app work with them anymore because they were 'too old'. The batteries in the Tiles were just fine at the time. They turned off all 4 of them I had x years after the activation date.

So you can hook a D battery up to them, or plug them into the wall. Doesn't mean a thing when the company turns off the access to them via the app.

 

[Beachbummer]

Right, that was their sealed model with baked in useful life. The model has changed and you can use the ones with a replaceable battery as you would expect, and they don't "crash and burn" after 12 months like before.

I have 6 or in my household, and I had some of the "auto expiring" ones before, so I understood exactly what you meant. Planned obsolescence. Still a factor on sealed models, but those with a replaceable battery will remain working. (Or have for me 2+ years on some)

They do crap out of they are submerged.

 

[ZGhost]

This is a good idea, but keep in mind that if a person with an iPhone steals your boat the AirTag will alert them to its presence. This is by design to prevent people from using AirTags to track people without their knowledge.

View attachment 154510

@captainhook dont give up yet.
@TimW451 Yes but that’s were the workaround comes in ?
They still need to find it and if hidden well, it will take a long time which you will find this is much needed time to track them down. Also, once the magnet is removed from the internal little speaker (hack on YouTube), it becomes even more difffict to find because there is no emitted sound to lead to its hidden location which in turn gives you even more time to track it. There is always a way and workaround for these things!

That said, still a very viable option for tracking assets!

 

[Julian]

Well that sure puts a damper on this doesn’t it?

If you have a small kid and have them stick it up inside a gunnel where an adult can't reach it...you'd buy yourself some time! Lol

 

[ZGhost]

If you have a small kid and have them stick it up inside a gunnel where an adult can't reach it...you'd buy yourself some time! Lol

you’re right Julian, there are plenty of places on a boat to hide this tiny button and with the silenced speaker route, makes a great effective tracker at close to nothing cost wise.

 

[TimW451]

This seems like a good addition to this thread. Thieves using Airtags to steal your car.

Apple AirTags Are Now Being Used To Steal Cars In Canada — Jalopnik

If you’re the kind of person who’s constantly hunting for your own keys, AirTags seem like a godsend: A compact device that can be tracked nearly anywhere in the world, without a costly GPS or data subscription? Incredible. Unfortunately, it seems like the kind of people on the hunt for other...

apple.news

 

[Bluewater272]

I use a little Trackimo device, its $5/month. I have it hardwired to the batteries in the boat, and tucked up and away high in the rear gunnels. Power wire is going through a factory loom so you would really need to tear things apart to find it. Works perfect, instant notification the moment it leaves my driveway or one of the areas that we frequently dock and leave it for meals and stuff.

 

[Ronnie]

I recently added air tags (not conditioner) to my boat and Waverunners.