Apple AirTags

[ladylikes2cruise]

Can anyone tell me if they work on the ship?

I have the Internet package.

[handbellplayer]

In our experience, not very well.  On our last cruise, it showed one of our tags (that was in our cabin) as still in FLL for the whole cruise.

[ladylikes2cruise]

Thank you for the information.

[handbellplayer]

Just now, ladylikes2cruise said:

Thank you for the information.

I should have said Port Everglades, not FLL.  It worked fine until we got to the port.

[ZoeyVictoria]

Last week, we arrived at the Port of Miami at about 10:15 a.m.  One of our three checked bags was at the cabin at some time before 1:30. The other two showed that they were in the same location we left them with a porter until an hour after sailaway. I can’t tell you how upset I was at the thought of seven nights on a cruise with no clothing 😡. They. magically appeared in our cabin at about 5:30 p.m.   WTH, Apple?!  So much unnecessary stress.  Then, for the rest of the cruise, we could tell every time the steward was in our cabin with his iPhone, because I received a notification that our luggage was no longer with us. 

[fenton04]

We have air tags.  You don’t need Wi-Fi for them to work.  They are paired with your phone.  If your phone is working the air tags are working.  Last September when we were on the Celebrity Summit and left the ship.  we would get alerts that the air tags were not with us. 

[George C]

Wife was panicking because it showed one of our bags not on board , it was delivered shortly after, but we like them.

[Cruise5life]

1 hour ago, ZoeyVictoria said:

Last week, we arrived at the Port of Miami at about 10:15 a.m.  One of our three checked bags was at the cabin at some time before 1:30. The other two showed that they were in the same location we left them with a porter until an hour after sailaway. I can’t tell you how upset I was at the thought of seven nights on a cruise with no clothing 😡. They. magically appeared in our cabin at about 5:30 p.m.   WTH, Apple?!  So much unnecessary stress.  Then, for the rest of the cruise, we could tell every time the steward was in our cabin with his iPhone, because I received a notification that our luggage was no longer with us. 

Not sure if you’re aware but if there’s no iPhone around your bag the location won’t update.    So until it’s close to an apple product the May look like the haven’t moved for a while.   Persons that moves your luggage could have a Samsung phone.       Just a thought.  

[ZoeyVictoria]

21 minutes ago, Cruise5life said:

Not sure if you’re aware but if there’s no iPhone around your bag the location won’t update.    So until it’s close to an apple product the May look like the haven’t moved for a while.   Persons that moves your luggage could have a Samsung phone.       Just a thought.  

No, it updated periodically, but always showed the same location with a different time. Started at 10:34 a.m., time changed three times, location never changed. We were sailing off with the two bags shown at the same location they had been since 10:34, still at the port instead of on the ship. The third bag showed that it was with us on the ship, which was correct. Later, the steward’s iPhone triggered them to report that they were no longer with us at roughly 10 a.m. and again around 7:15 p.m, each day, times he was likely to be in the cabin. 

[sailor05]

They're great keeping track of bags while flying, but once on the ship they're useless

[twangster]

The problem with airtags is that they rely on a community of apple devices to detect them and provide location information based on the device that saw the airtag.

 

On land there tends to be many apple phones from various strangers whose devices detect an airtag in a suitcase in the trunk of a car sort of thing and all of those apple devices that see the airtag have cellular connectivity with generally pretty good location data to update iCloud on behalf of your airtag.

 

On a ship the community of apple devices that come across your airtag shrinks significantly.  Plus the location data some strangers device has may not be very good absent of the cellular antenna available with devices in airplane mode on a ship.

 

It's not unusual for my mobile devices to think they are in Florida while on a ship in airplane mode because cabins are a lot of metal and with devices in airplane mode in a metal cage they have poor location data so they use the wifi internet connection (if a device has a Voom plan) to determine the location.   This is the location my device will use if it's comes across an airtag in my neighbors cabin.  It's the same poor location that some weather apps use to incorrectly think I'm in Florida.

 

The problem on ships is the community of connected apple devices are mostly lost thinking they are somewhere other than where they are so when it comes to your airtag, if someone else's apple device does see it (already slim with all metal cabins), chances are their apple devices doesn't have a good location to report where your airtag was observed.

 

Dock workers loading luggage or driving a forklift on the pier may not have their phone with them if their employer bans cell phones on the dock, or maybe the only workers that come in range of your airtag don't have apple phones and if they do the device is locked in their pocket so it's location data may not be perfect.   

 

[cozmo1145]

Worked great for me!  Could zoom in & see the bags on the pier prior to being loaded on the ship & then on the ship somewhere prior to being delivered to our room.  As I walked around the ship throughout the cruise thereafter, I'd periodically get notifications that my luggage had been left behind "somewhere in the North Atlantic."  Got a laugh out of it every time.  More importantly, it gave me peace of mind seeing the point at which the bags had been loaded onto the ship.  Seems like everyone's experience is different - but was great for me. 🙂

[lovesthebeach2]

They worked for us. I had one in each suitcase.

[twangster]

Semi-interesting airtag fun fact.  

 

I was on a land trip with a friend this past weekend.  I had an airtag in my suitcase.  We went hiking and stayed in a hotel before going back to their place.  Their apple phone warned them that an unknown airtag was remaining in close proximity to them possibly tracking them.  It freaked them out not knowing I had an airtag with me.  

 

Because my airtag in my suitcase was around us everywhere we went it appeared as if someone had attached an airtag to their car or them.  

 

That makes me wonder if we'll start getting complaints of unknown airtags in a neighboring cabin on a ship setting off an alert that something is tracking a strangers mobile device.   

[crewsweeper]

Tile seems to work very well on iPhone, at least for us.  Helps track down luggage on departure and also picked up a missing bag in the passageway on one cruise.

[TravelGirlinDallas]

12 hours ago, sailor05 said:

They're great keeping track of bags while flying, but once on the ship they're useless

This was our experience, as well. Told us one of our bags was left behind at the port (panic), but it was later delivered to our cabin.

[Fouremco]

16 hours ago, fenton04 said:

We have air tags.  You don’t need Wi-Fi for them to work.  They are paired with your phone.  If your phone is working the air tags are working.  Last September when we were on the Celebrity Summit and left the ship.  we would get alerts that the air tags were not with us. 

AirTags emit a bluetooth signal that is automatically detected by an active Apple device within range. That device then transmits its location information to the iCloud, but must have cellular or wifi internet access in order to transmit that information.

 

Once this information is in the iCloud, the owner of the AirTag can acquire the AirTag's location using the Find My app on any Apple device. Once again, however, the owner must have cellular or wifi access to the internet to achieve this.

 

Once out of bluetooth range from one another, there is no pairing of the AirTag and your iPhone or other Apple devices. While you don't need wifi, you do need internet access in order to acquire the location information from the iCloud.

[lovesthebeach2]

16 hours ago, fenton04 said:

We have air tags.  You don’t need Wi-Fi for them to work.  They are paired with your phone.  If your phone is working the air tags are working.  Last September when we were on the Celebrity Summit and left the ship.  we would get alerts that the air tags were not with us. 

I turned that feature off. I don’t routinely want my air tag that’s at home sending me a reminder that I’ve left it there every time I go out……I do however keep it turned on for my Apple Watch and if I leave my phone at home my watch lets me know..

[lovesthebeach2]

On our last cruise my air tag first was showing the luggage sitting at the port….then later it showed it was sitting in the water.. I knew it was on the ship then.

[volk904]

I think the process of how Air tags work with other iPhones and cell towers does not do well on the ship.  That said when returning from our cruise my daughter had a missing car seats and a bunch of people were missing bags on our non stop flight home.  Someone had an air tag showing their missing luggage was at the airport. Long story short there was a whole cart from our plane that had not be unloaded.