When you’ve ever missed an on-time departure because of a set of misplaced keys or misplaced pockets, you’ll profit from a Bluetooth tracker. These small gadgets connect to your stuff and use your smartphone to maintain tabs on the place they’re. AirTags are the very best identified within the class, tapping right into a discovering community created by means of nameless iPhone pings within the space. Google now has the same community utilizing close by Android telephones, and Samsung has its personal community that employs Galaxy telephones. Some third-party trackers work with both Google or Apple’s community and supply further options besides. We examined trackers from Apple, Tile, Pebblebee, Samsung and Chipolo, evaluating their discovering capabilities, sound ranges, reliability and design. We expect the Chipolo Pop is the very best Bluetooth tracker for most individuals, however just a few different trackers have their deserves as properly.
What to search for in a Bluetooth monitoring system
Bluetooth trackers are small discs or playing cards that depend on short-range, low-energy wi-fi alerts to speak together with your smartphone. Connect one among these devices your stuff and, if it’s in vary, your cellphone can “ring” the chip so you’ll find it. These monitoring gadgets supply different options like separation alerts to inform you once you’ve left a tagged merchandise behind, or the place a misplaced merchandise was final detected. Some may even faucet into a bigger community of smartphones to trace down your system once you’re out of vary. Relying on what you need the tracker to do, there are just a few specs to search for when deciding which to get.
System compatibility
Like most issues from the parents in Cupertino, AirTags solely work with merchandise within the Apple ecosystem. Each Apple and Google have opened up entry to the Discover My and Discover My System networks to third-party producers, together with Chipolo and Pebblebee. These two corporations make device-agnostic fashions that may work with the bigger monitoring community from both model, so iPhone and Android customers should purchase the identical tag. Tile trackers work with both Android or Apple gadgets, however use Tile’s personal Life 360 discovering community. Samsung’s newest fob, the Galaxy SmartTag2, solely works with Samsung telephones and faucets right into a discovering system that depends on different Samsung gadgets to find misplaced tags.
Discovering community
Crowd-sourced discovering capabilities are what make headlines, with tales about recovering stolen equipment or monitoring misplaced baggage across the globe. Utilizing nameless alerts that ping different individuals’s gadgets, these Bluetooth monitoring gadgets can probably inform you the place a tagged merchandise is, even when your smartphone is out of Bluetooth vary.
Apple’s Discover My community is the biggest, with over a billion iPhones and iPads in service all working Apple’s Discover My app by default. So except an iPhone person opts out, their cellphone silently acts as a location detector for any close by AirTags. Apple just lately elevated the AirTag’s discovering energy by enabling you to share the location of a lost tag with a 3rd occasion, occasion, like an airline. Chipolo fobs that work on Apple’s community have the identical potential. Google launched its Discover My System community in 2024 and it’s an in depth second for the biggest within the US
Now that Google’s Discover My System community is up and running, it’s an in depth second for the biggest within the US. Like Apple, Android customers are robotically a part of the community, however can opt-out by deciding on the Google providers choice of their cellphone’s Settings app and toggling the choice within the Discover My System menu. Samsung’s SmartTag 2 and associated community additionally defaults to an opt-in standing for locating tags and different gadgets.
Tile affords a big discovering grid that features Tile customers, Amazon Sidewalk prospects and folks working the Life360 community. Life360 acquired Tile in 2021, and, based on the corporate, the Life360 community has greater than 70 million month-to-month lively customers.
In our assessments, AirTags and third-party tags utilizing its community, just like the Chipolo Pop and Pebblebee Clip Common, had been the quickest to trace down misplaced gadgets. They supplied almost real-time location information in reasonably to closely trafficked spots round Albuquerque, together with a bar, bookstore and occasional outlets in Nob Hill, together with numerous out of doors hangouts on UNM’s campus.
Samsung’s SmartTags had been in a position to find our misplaced gadgets more often than not, although not with the identical precision discovering accuracy as AirTags. After we examined Google’s Find My Device network proper after launch, it was noticeably slower than Apple’s community when utilizing the group discovering characteristic. Testing it once more in 2025, the time it took to find a misplaced merchandise was significantly improved, taking only a couple minutes for the group to trace a fob. In our assessments, Tile’s discovering community wasn’t in a position to constantly find its misplaced fobs.
Separation alerts
Right here’s the place a tracker’s day-to-day utility actually shines. A separation alert lets once you’ve traveled too far out of your tagged gadgets, which is beneficial if you wish to ensure that your laptop bag, or jacket or umbrella at all times comes with you once you depart the home.
These notifications work once you’re out and about too. When you’ve received a Bluetooth monitoring system in your pockets and stroll out of a restaurant with out it, the separation alert ought to kick in, leading to fewer misplaced gadgets. This characteristic additionally tells you the place your tagged merchandise and cellphone had been final paired, permitting you to retrace your steps when you occur to overlook the alert.
Every tracker handles left-behind gadgets in a different way. AirTags and third-party fobs utilizing its community (corresponding to from Chipolo or Pebblebee) embrace the characteristic by default. Tile trackers require a yearly subscription to allow the alerts (presently $30 yearly). Tags working with the Google Discover My System community don’t supply the characteristic in any respect, however Chipolo Pop tags can difficulty left-behind alerts utilizing its personal Android app. Each AirTags and Tiles can help you flip off separation alerts at sure places, that means you’ll be able to set your property as a “secure” place the place gadgets may be left behind, however alerts will nonetheless set off elsewhere.
In our assessments, AirTags and others utilizing the Discover My community alerted us between the 600- and 1,400-foot mark. Tiles despatched a notification after about a median of 1,500 toes and had been extra constant when utilizing an Android cellphone than an iPhone. Chipolo Pop tags paired with an Android cellphone and utilizing its personal app despatched an alert once we received round 450 toes away from our tagged merchandise.
Connectivity, quantity and design
The characteristic chances are you’ll use most frequently is the important thing finder operate, which makes the tracker ring once you hit a button within the app. With Apple’s AirTags, you’ll be able to say “Hey Siri, the place are my keys?” and the assistant will ring the tag (assuming it does not mistakenly assume you are asking for instructions to the Floridian archipelago). Asking Alexa or the Google Assistant to search out your keys will work with Chipolo, Tile and Pebblebee trackers linked to your Android system.
If in case you have your tag however can’t discover your cellphone, some trackers will allow you to ring them to search out your handset. SmartTag2 fobs reliably rang our Galaxy cellphone once we double-pressed it. Tile trackers have the identical characteristic. Chipolo Pop trackers can ring your cellphone, however makes use of the Chipolo app to take action, which might run concurrently with the Discover My or Discover My System connection. AirTags and any third-party tags utilizing solely Apple or Google’s networks don’t supply this characteristic.
The quantity of the Bluetooth monitoring system could decide whether or not you’ll find an merchandise buried in your sofa cushions or in a loud room. AirTags have a repute for being on the quiet facet, and that aligned with what we noticed (measuring roughly 65 decibels). Chipolo’s Pop tags and Tile’s Professional mannequin measure between 83 and 86 decibels on common. Pebblebee’s new Clip Common was the loudest of any tag we’ve examined, clocking in at 91 ear-splitting decibels.
Design will decide what you’ll be able to connect the tracker to. AirTags are small, clean discs that may’t be secured to something with out accessories, that are quite a few, however that’s a further price to think about. Chipolo, Pebblebee and Tile supply trackers with holes that simply connect to your key ring, and all three corporations additionally supply card-shaped variations designed to slot in your pockets. Pebblebee Clip Common tags include a useful carabiner-style key ring.
Batteries are replaceable for AirTag, Tile Professional, SmartTag2 and Chipolo Pop fobs and every ought to go for no less than a yr earlier than needing to be swapped. Tile Mate and card-shaped trackers don’t have replaceable batteries, which suggests you’ll have to interchange the whole unit every time it dies. Pebblebee trackers are rechargeable in each the disc and pockets selection. They’re additionally the one tags outfitted with onboard LEDs.
Stalking, theft and information privateness
AirTags have gotten numerous consideration and even prompted some lawsuits for Apple as a consequence of unhealthy actors planting them on individuals to be able to stalk them. Whereas this reality could not affect your shopping for choice, any dialogue of Bluetooth trackers ought to word what steps Apple, Google and Tile have taken to handle the problem. Final yr, all the key gamers within the Bluetooth tracker enterprise teamed up to fight misuse and standardize how unauthorized monitoring detection and alerts work for iOS and Android.
Final yr, Tile launched a characteristic referred to as Anti-Theft Mode, which lets you render one among its trackers undetectable by others. Meaning if somebody steals your tagged merchandise, they received’t be capable to use the anti-stalking options to search out and disable the tracker. That type of negates one of many main methods potential stalking victims can keep secure, so Tile hopes ID verification and a $1 million penalty will deter misuse. Individually, Tile was just lately hit by a data breach, elevating completely different privateness issues. The corporate issued a statement in regards to the occasion, which it shared with Engadget:
Much like many different corporations, Life360 just lately grew to become the sufferer of a legal extortion try. We obtained emails from an unknown actor claiming to own Tile buyer data. We promptly initiated an investigation into the potential incident and detected unauthorized entry to a Tile buyer help platform (however not our Tile service platform). The possibly impacted information consists of knowledge corresponding to names, addresses, electronic mail addresses, cellphone numbers, and Tile system identification numbers. It doesn’t embrace extra delicate data, corresponding to bank card numbers, passwords or log-in credentials, location information, or government-issued identification numbers, as a result of the Tile buyer help platform didn’t include these data sorts.
We consider this incident was restricted to the precise Tile buyer help information described above and isn’t extra widespread. We take this occasion and the safety of buyer data significantly. We now have taken and can proceed to take steps designed to additional shield our programs from unhealthy actors, and now we have reported this occasion and the extortion try and regulation enforcement. We stay dedicated to holding households secure on-line and in the true world.
As a theft deterrent, a Bluetooth tracker could or might not be the best choice. Anecdotal tales abound during which individuals have recovered stolen items utilizing a tracker — however different tales are more cautionary. Neither Apple nor Google promotes its trackers or discovering networks as a solution to cope with theft. GPS trackers, however, are sometimes marketed for simply that goal.
How we examined
Earlier than deciding on which trackers to check, we researched the sphere, person opinions on Amazon, Finest Purchase and different retailers, together with discussions on websites like Reddit. We additionally checked out what different publications needed to say on the matter earlier than narrowing down our choices to Apple AirTag, Tile, and Chipolo trackers. When Samsung’s SmartTag 2 got here out in October of 2023, we added that to our testing, together with Pebblebee’s rechargeable Clip tracker. After Google launched its Discover My System, each Chipolo and Pebblebee launched trackers in 2025 that work with both community and we examined the Pop and Common key fob fashions and up to date our prime picks accordingly.
Right here’s the complete record of each tracker we examined:
After buying the trackers, I examined every one over the course of some weeks utilizing each an iPhone 11 and a Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely. I recreated seemingly person experiences, corresponding to dropping and leaving gadgets behind at residence and out within the metropolis. I planted trackers at completely different spots close to downtown Albuquerque, largely concentrated in and across the College of New Mexico and the encircling neighborhood of Nob Hill. Later, I carried out assessments within the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle. Every take a look at was carried out a number of occasions, each whereas strolling and driving and I used the measure distance characteristic on Google Maps to trace footage for alerts. I paid consideration to how straightforward the app was to make use of, how dependable the phone-to-tracker connection was and some other perks and disadvantages that got here up throughout common use.
Different trackers we examined
Tile Professional and Tile Mate (2024)
Tile just lately got here out with a brand new suite of trackers, changing the Tile Mate, Tile Professional, Tile Sticker and Tile Slim with updated models. Along with enjoyable new colours for the Mate and Slim, Tile added an SOS characteristic that may ship a notification to your Life360 Circle once you triple press the button on the tracker. It’s a intelligent addition that turns your keys right into a panic button, one thing supplied by private security corporations as standalone gadgets.
There are just a few caveats: You and the individuals you wish to notify in an emergency will want the Life360 app put in in your telephones. If you would like your Tile to additionally set off a name to emergency providers, you’ll want a $15-per-month Life360 subscription (that’s along with a Tile membership, which begins at $3/month or $30 yearly). And enabling the SOS triple-press disables the power to ring your cellphone with the fob.
I examined the SOS characteristic and it did certainly ship a textual content message to my Circle, with the message that I had triggered an SOS and a hyperlink to a web site that confirmed my present location. I believed it odd that the hyperlink didn’t open the Life360 app (which reveals the placement of customers’ telephones), however I wasn’t as a lot involved with Tile’s private security options as I used to be with the monitoring capabilities, which turned out to be lower than superb.
For my assessments, I planted Tile trackers in a densely populated space of Seattle (about 15,000 individuals per sq. mile). After setting the trackers to “misplaced” within the Tile app, I waited. After 4 hours, one of many trackers was not found by the discovering group, so I went and retrieved it. One other fob I planted alerted me that the tracker had been discovered by the Tile group after three hours — however the location it gave me was off by a 3rd of a mile. I then determined to plant a tracker in probably the most populated place I may consider — the dried fruit and nuts aisle of a Dealer Joes on a Friday night earlier than a significant vacation. It nonetheless took over a half an hour earlier than one other Tile person anonymously pinged my misplaced tracker.
In my assessments with Samsung’s trackers and the fobs on Google’s Discover My System community, it took round ten minutes for them to be found. AirTags took half that point and all had been examined in a far much less populated metropolis. 4 hours with no ping and over a half hour earlier than getting successful in a crowded TJs had been fairly lengthy stretches.
Our prime choose, the traditional Chipolo, has nearly no discovering community. However when you’re getting a tracker for that characteristic alone, you need to go along with AirTags you probably have an iPhone or the Google-enabled Chipolo or Pebblebee trackers when you use an Android cellphone. We want the Chipolo as a result of it really works with both iOS or Android gadgets, it rings loud, it’s fast to inform you once you’ve left it behind and it connects almost immediately once you’re looking for a misplaced tracker round the home.
Tile gadgets additionally work with each cell working programs and its newest fashions are certainly louder than they had been earlier than. However they aren’t as fast to attach and it’s essential pay for a membership to activate left-behind alerts. And once you do, these notifications don’t kick in as shortly as they do with competing trackers.
Bluetooth tracker FAQs
Which Bluetooth tracker has the longest vary?
Each the Tile Professional and the Samsung Galaxy SmartTag2 declare a most vary of round 400 toes, which is longer than the 300-foot declare for Chipolo’s Pop tags. The Pebblebee Clip Common claims a 500-foot vary, although different trackers with a shorter claimed vary carried out higher in our assessments. Apple doesn’t make vary claims for AirTags. Any Bluetooth sign, after all, relies on just a few elements. Obstacles like partitions and folks can block the sign, so a transparent line of sight is the one solution to obtain the utmost vary. Different alerts, like Wi-Fi, also can intervene with Bluetooth connections. Even excessive humidity can have an impact and reduce the space at which your cellphone will connect with your tracker.
Keep in mind, when contemplating the vary of Bluetooth trackers, the scale of the “discovering community” additionally comes into play. That is the variety of close by telephones that can be utilized to anonymously ping your tracker when your individual cellphone is out of Bluetooth vary. As of now, Apple AirTags have the biggest community, adopted by Google’s Discover My System, Samsung’s discovering group and Tile’s Life360 members.
What’s the finest Bluetooth tracker for a automobile?
Bluetooth trackers are designed to trace small, private gadgets like keys, jackets, backpacks and the like. All trackers have safeguards to ban the tag from getting used to stalk individuals, so most will alert somebody if a tracker that doesn’t belong to them is detected following them. Meaning a automobile thief could get tipped off that there’s a tracker within the automobile they’re attempting to steal. That stated, you’ll see loads of stories about individuals discovering their automobile because of a Bluetooth tracker. Some police departments have even handed out trackers to fight excessive charges of carjacking. In most cases, the tracker of selection has been AirTags because of their extensive discovering community. When you’re in search of a tracker to your automobile, chances are you’ll wish to look into GPS trackers, a few of that are designed for simply that goal.
How correct are Bluetooth trackers?
Accuracy for Bluetooth trackers may be checked out in two methods: Discovering gadgets close by and discovering gadgets misplaced exterior your property. For close by gadgets, you’ll most frequently use the ring operate on the system to hunt it down. Two tags, Apple’s AirTags and Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag2, additionally use ultra-wideband know-how, which creates directional navigation in your cellphone to get you inside a foot of the tracker.
Precisely discovering misplaced gadgets exterior your property is dependent upon the scale of the discovering community. Since this depends on the serendipity of a random cellphone passing inside Bluetooth vary of your tracker, the extra telephones on a given community, the higher. And since Bluetooth ranges and distance estimates are solely exact inside a couple of meter or so, getting pings from multiple cellphone will assist finding gadgets. Right here once more, it’s value noting that Apple’s Discover My community is the biggest, adopted by Google, Samsung and Tile (each Chipolo and Pebblebee have fobs that work with the Apple and Google networks).
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/equipment/best-bluetooth-tracker-140028377.html?src=rss
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