The moment usually comes at the worst possible time. You are at an airport, juggling a phone, a coffee and a boarding pass, when the realisation hits: the bag is not where it should be. Or it happens at home, late at night, when a child cannot sleep without a favourite toy that has mysteriously vanished. Travelling and daily life have a habit of turning messy very quickly. Apple’s AirTag promises calm amid that chaos.
The reasonably priced, puck-shaped tracker helps you keep tabs on your belongings using Bluetooth and Apple’s vast Find My network. First launched in 2021, the AirTag quickly became one of Apple’s success stories. The second generation version does not try to reinvent that idea. Instead, it refines it. We have been using it for the past few days.
At first glance, the second generation AirTag looks unchanged. It is the same small white puck, it feels identical in the hand, and it even weighs almost the same (11 g versus 11.8 g). Battery life remains roughly a year. If you lined it up next to the original, you would struggle to tell them apart. Only once you start using it does the progress reveal itself.
Setup is as frictionless as ever. Bring an AirTag close to your unlocked iPhone and the pairing prompt appears almost instantly. You name it handbag, wallet or something more personal, pick an emoji if you are in the mood, and wait for the familiar chime. A short walkthrough follows, highlighting features such as Precision Finding, the ability to ping it from an Apple Watch, and the option to share the AirTag with others.
What’s changed on the inside
The most meaningful upgrade sits entirely on the inside. The second generation AirTag uses a newer Ultra Wideband chip, the same class of technology found in recent iPhones and Apple Watches. On the first generation model, Precision Finding typically worked within about 30 to 100 feet, sometimes more with a clear line of sight. The new AirTag extends that range significantly. Using haptic, visual and audio feedback, Precision Finding now guides users to their lost items from up to 50 percent farther away than before. In day to day use, the improvement is immediately noticeable.
Precision Finding remains one of the most satisfying parts of the product. Open the Find My app, tap your AirTag, and your phone guides you with arrows, distance readouts, gentle haptic taps and audible cues. It feels a little like a game of warmer and colder, except it reliably gets you to the right spot.
For the first time, Precision Finding also works on Apple Watch Series 9 or later, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later. Being able to locate an item from your wrist turns out to be genuinely useful, particularly when your phone is buried in a bag or charging in another room.
Apple has also reworked the speaker. The new AirTag is noticeably louder, with a higher pitched chime that cuts through background noise more effectively. If your keys have slipped under a sofa cushion or your bag is buried under a pile of coats, the extra volume makes a difference. You can also trigger the sound from farther away than before, thanks to updated Bluetooth hardware.
Sharing remains one of the AirTag’s strongest features. You can allow friends or family members to see the location of an item, which is particularly handy when travelling. Apple has partnered with more than 50 airlines to privately and securely accept Share Item Location links. If a bag goes missing between check in and the carousel, that added visibility can be reassuring, even if it does not instantly solve the problem.
Physically, there are only minor changes. The text on the polished metal side is now printed in capital letters.
The new AirTag is designed with the environment in mind, using 85 percent recycled plastic in the enclosure, 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100 percent recycled gold plating in all Apple designed printed circuit boards. Whether the shell resists scratches better over time remains to be seen. The shape itself is unchanged, so existing key rings and accessories still fit. If you order online, Apple will also engrave your AirTags for free, which is surprisingly useful if you have several in circulation at home.
Privacy, alerts and the Find My network
What truly makes AirTag work is the Find My network. Think of the AirTag as a key that unlocks access to a vast, quietly expanding system. When an AirTag sends out its secure Bluetooth signal, nearby devices in the network detect it and relay its location to iCloud. You then see that location in the Find My app. The process is anonymous and encrypted, designed to protect privacy while using so little power that battery life is barely affected.
Like other Apple devices, AirTag supports Lost Mode. Switch it on and you are notified the moment the network detects it. You can also attach your contact details so that if someone finds your AirTag and taps it with an NFC capable phone, they can see how to reach you.
Privacy remains the most important part of the AirTag story. Only you can see where your AirTag is. Location data and history are never stored on the device itself. Devices that relay its location remain anonymous, and that data is encrypted throughout the process. Not even Apple knows where your AirTag is or which device helped locate it.
The AirTag is also designed to discourage unwanted tracking. If someone else’s AirTag finds its way into your belongings, your iPhone or Android phone will recognise that it is travelling with you and send an alert. If you still have not located it after a while, the AirTag will begin playing a sound to draw attention to itself.
If you are with a friend who has an AirTag, or on a train full of people carrying them, there is no need to worry. Alerts are only triggered when an AirTag is separated from its owner.
The second generation AirTag is not a dramatic reinvention. It is a careful internal upgrade. But the longer range, louder speaker and support for Precision Finding on Apple Watch make it better at the single job it exists to do. It finds your things faster, from farther away, and with less effort. For a product this small, that kind of progress matters.