WHAT WE LEARNED 1. The airtags never notified Billy that the bike was gone (even after 45 minutes). We wrongly assumed that the "you left your item behind" notification would work in reverse. It doesn't work that way, or at least it didn't for us. In fact, once Billy got a mile away from our office, the iPhone actually told him that HE left the bike back at the office even though he was already using the app which clearly showed the bike to be several miles away from the office. 2. As long as I was moving, the tags updated far too slowly for him to track me down. Most of the time, based on time stamps of our footage, the phone told him I was a few miles away from where I was because it was about 10 minutes behind real-time. 3. Once I stayed in one location, he was able to make it to me in almost exactly 10 minutes. This essentially gives a theif 10 minute chunks of time to try to locate the airtag before moving again. 4. In this test (not sure why) it could not give him the exact location of the bike once I stopped moving. There was a pretty large radius that Billy had to search without help from the phone. In fact, it didn't lock on to the exact location until he was about 3-5 feet away. 5. If he didn't have a hunch, that I went to my lunch spot, he likely would not have been able to find me. If I had the bike hidden he would not have found me. 6. The nearby feature was failing to connect even when he was within a couple of feet of the bike. In previous tests I've done, this was not the case. Why it struggled in this moment, we are not sure. Bottom line, if your stolen item isn't moving for an extended time, and you can get to it before a thief locates the placement of your tag, you might be able to get your item back. This is why I suggest removing the speaker from the device and placing it somewhere the thief will have to do some serious dissecting of your bike to remove it. The hope is that they are either clueless/not a pro or they give up because they can't find the AirTag and ditch the bike. In which case, the FindMy app will lead you to it 10 minutes after it was ditched.
Great test and What We Learned comment I believe Apple purposely named the feature "Left Behind" versus "Separated from you" as it only supports you leaving the AirTag behind. I agree that the speed at which the tag is moving affects its reporting, as it has only a short time to negotiate with devices it passes by. I can get much further in the same neighborhood driving versus walking before I get the Left Behind notification.
Right, for sure. Thanks for the comment!! I don’t know why, but I just assumed it would work both ways for leaving your phone behind. I can be a bit dense at times. 😂 And that is an interesting observation. I’ve noticed for me it seemed more related to the distance than the speed I was traveling for left behind notifications. It seems to notify me when I am roughly 1 mile away. Again, I just assumed it was working based on distance.
@@VoltVlog Another example of tricky wording is "Notify me, except at:" which is what Apple called Trusted Locations. While you might think this would be neat to not get a notification when you leave AirPods at your desk on purpose at work and walk to a meeting, you might expect that once your iPhone leaves the building with you for the day, you will be a notification of AirPods Left Behind.... no so in My testing. Again, Apple chooses their word very carefully, but I wish they would also include examples of where something doesn't work as expected.
@@faengelm Yes, we still have a host of tests to answer other questions we have about these tags. We've been testing them for the last week for a variety of scenarios and will be putting out another video with all that we have learned. It's been quite eye-opening for how these function vs how they don't function (at least for how I expected them to work vs how they actually work...some things better and some things worse).
WHAT WE LEARNED
1. The airtags never notified Billy that the bike was gone (even after 45 minutes). We wrongly assumed that the "you left your item behind" notification would work in reverse. It doesn't work that way, or at least it didn't for us. In fact, once Billy got a mile away from our office, the iPhone actually told him that HE left the bike back at the office even though he was already using the app which clearly showed the bike to be several miles away from the office.
2. As long as I was moving, the tags updated far too slowly for him to track me down. Most of the time, based on time stamps of our footage, the phone told him I was a few miles away from where I was because it was about 10 minutes behind real-time.
3. Once I stayed in one location, he was able to make it to me in almost exactly 10 minutes. This essentially gives a theif 10 minute chunks of time to try to locate the airtag before moving again.
4. In this test (not sure why) it could not give him the exact location of the bike once I stopped moving. There was a pretty large radius that Billy had to search without help from the phone. In fact, it didn't lock on to the exact location until he was about 3-5 feet away.
5. If he didn't have a hunch, that I went to my lunch spot, he likely would not have been able to find me. If I had the bike hidden he would not have found me.
6. The nearby feature was failing to connect even when he was within a couple of feet of the bike. In previous tests I've done, this was not the case. Why it struggled in this moment, we are not sure.
Bottom line, if your stolen item isn't moving for an extended time, and you can get to it before a thief locates the placement of your tag, you might be able to get your item back. This is why I suggest removing the speaker from the device and placing it somewhere the thief will have to do some serious dissecting of your bike to remove it. The hope is that they are either clueless/not a pro or they give up because they can't find the AirTag and ditch the bike. In which case, the FindMy app will lead you to it 10 minutes after it was ditched.
Great test and What We Learned comment
I believe Apple purposely named the feature "Left Behind" versus "Separated from you" as it only supports you leaving the AirTag behind.
I agree that the speed at which the tag is moving affects its reporting, as it has only a short time to negotiate with devices it passes by. I can get much further in the same neighborhood driving versus walking before I get the Left Behind notification.
Right, for sure. Thanks for the comment!! I don’t know why, but I just assumed it would work both ways for leaving your phone behind. I can be a bit dense at times. 😂 And that is an interesting observation. I’ve noticed for me it seemed more related to the distance than the speed I was traveling for left behind notifications. It seems to notify me when I am roughly 1 mile away. Again, I just assumed it was working based on distance.
@@VoltVlog Another example of tricky wording is "Notify me, except at:" which is what Apple called Trusted Locations.
While you might think this would be neat to not get a notification when you leave AirPods at your desk on purpose at work and walk to a meeting, you might expect that once your iPhone leaves the building with you for the day, you will be a notification of AirPods Left Behind.... no so in My testing.
Again, Apple chooses their word very carefully, but I wish they would also include examples of where something doesn't work as expected.
@@faengelm Yes, we still have a host of tests to answer other questions we have about these tags. We've been testing them for the last week for a variety of scenarios and will be putting out another video with all that we have learned. It's been quite eye-opening for how these function vs how they don't function (at least for how I expected them to work vs how they actually work...some things better and some things worse).
Great video, thank you!
Unless he is near another Iphone with blue tooth activated you are SOL.