You lose your keys, you pull out your phone — right? Not anymore. Apple’s second‑generation AirTag quietly makes two everyday tasks faster (and one worryingly simple to exploit).
What’s changed under the shell
Physically the new AirTag looks almost identical to the original, but Apple reworked the internals: a second‑generation ultra‑wideband chip for longer, more responsive Precision Finding, a redesigned speaker that’s louder and higher pitched, and a few small efficiency tweaks. Reviewers reported Precision Finding showing a “getting closer” cue from noticeably farther away — in some tests around 80 feet — and a chime you’re more likely to hear in noisy places. The UWB improvements require newer hardware on the finder side (iPhone 15 or later for the fullest effect).
If you want the official basics on setup and safety, Apple’s support pages are still the best reference: AirTag support.
Two neat tricks most people miss
1) Precision finding from your wrist. If you have an Apple Watch Series 9, Ultra 2 or newer, you don’t need to fish your iPhone out of a pocket to start a Precision Find. There’s a Find Items shortcut you can add to your watch’s Control Center and pin to start directional tracking straight from the watch face. It’s not turned on by default — you need to add the control in the Watch app or directly on the watch — but once it’s there, your watch can give the same left/right/near guidance that used to require an iPhone.
If you follow Apple Watch coverage, this change is part of a broader push and even ties into regulatory shifts affecting how watches and phones sync in some regions — for more background, see Apple’s plans around iPhone–Apple Watch sync in the EU Apple's plan to change iPhone–Apple Watch sync in EU.
2) A tiny battery‑saving habit. AirTags drain their coin cell slowly even when idle. If you keep spare tags in a drawer, twist the back off, take the battery out, then drop it back in loosely so the internal magnet holds it without making contact. Put the cover back on and the tag stays dormant until you actually nudge the battery into place. No extra tools required — just a two‑second trick that stretches battery life for backups and rotation use.
Both of these tips are simple but useful: the watch shortcut makes finding immediate, and the loose‑battery trick keeps spares ready without constant annual replacements.
The teardown that matters
Not everything in the new AirTag is an unambiguous win. A teardown by security and hardware writers found it takes only a basic tool and a couple of minutes to open the unit and disable its speaker. The tag still functions for location tracking after the speaker is removed, which is a practical problem: one of Apple’s safeguards against misuse is the tag’s sound when separated from its owner. A silenced AirTag can be used to track someone without the easy audio clue that usually helps someone notice and find an unknown device.
That vulnerability isn’t just theoretical. There’s an aftermarket market for modified trackers with muted speakers, and the new AirTag’s internals appear easier to access than some hoped. On the plus side, this isn’t entirely a dead end: engineers could deploy a firmware fix that watches for the speaker circuit being activated but not drawing current, and render tampered tags unusable. Until such a software safety net exists, physical tampering remains a real risk.
So what should you do?
- If you rely on AirTags, add the watch shortcut and try the Precision Find on your wrist — it’s genuinely handy for keys and small items. If you need a new Apple Watch while you’re thinking about it, the Apple Watch models that support the feature are widely available.
- Keep spares in a dormant state if you don’t use them often by using the loose battery trick.
- Be mindful of privacy: if you hear a tag sound where it shouldn’t be or receive an unknown‑tracker alert, follow Apple’s guidance on how to locate and disable the device. For people who don’t use Apple devices, remember Android users have had gaps in tracker protections historically — that’s why silenced or modified tags are particularly concerning.
- If you buy multiple tags (they’re still competitively priced), watch for official deals and retailer sales; there have been notable discounts on multi‑packs recently — see our coverage of a past AirTag 4‑pack discount.
Hardware improvements made the AirTag 2 a better everyday finder: louder sound, a longer and more reliable Precision Finding envelope, and smoother tracking. But the teardown shows that software and ecosystem protections still need to carry some of the burden. The device is more capable than before — and that capability makes it even more important for Apple to harden both firmware and detection systems against misuse.
If you’re buying, using, or gifting AirTags: learn the quick tricks, enjoy the convenience, and keep an eye on privacy updates that could change how effective those hardware hacks are over time.