Yeah, I forget the wording but there’s a notification like “so-and-so’s AirTag is near you and they can see where you are.” My spouse put AirTags in our baby stuff and I get them whenever I’m using it.
It's also other devices. I used to get a notification that my wife's AirPods would be following me. It only got silenced when we formed an Apple family.
You get a notification when an AirTag is following you for some time, but the AirTags owner is not near it. It's meant to detect someone slipping an AirTag on you without the false alarms from, say, taking a walk with a friend who has one in their backpack.
Wait so a thieve an eye with an iPhone who steals my expensive bicycle that I have tagged with an airtag Is receiving a notification that there is an airtag "following" them nearby?
They always talk about lost items in their marketing. They don’t talk about theft prevention or finding pets or anything. Gotta go for a mini GPS tracker or something for protecting $$$$(+) bikes (which should never leave one’s sight anyway).
Meaning: you can't, because the point of it is to help protect your kid (or, more probably, help find their backpack when they absent-mindedly lose sight of it), not to spam teachers with notifications and disrupt everyone with random beeping.
If I just say that you’re the smartest person ever will you stop this? Your point has been made over and over again… just like every single time I read you.
Right, like “cut your dinner with a knife, the one actual murderers would use.”
They had to balance needs of us owners of things and needs of abused partners and the general public. Other trackers have been available long long before AirTags and haven’t gone away since Apple’s introduction.
As it stands, plenty are still very upset about the existence of AirTags. Especially given the ease of disabling the speaker and the lack of Android notifications at launch.
We have AirTags registered to my wife's account because I use Android. I have one in my work backpack, and every morning I get a notification that an unknown tracker is following me. I wish there was a way to silence the warning for that specific tag.
Yes, within about 30 minutes. They are basically useless for theft prevention as a result. Apple nerfed the functionality after someone used it for stalking. You'll notice there is no mention of theft prevention in the marketing materials anymore.
Apple even provide a handy Android app for locating them.
There never was mention of theft prevention. The release day marketing was about losing your keys in the couch. Day one ios would alert you if a tag was tracking you but it took a while for them to collaborate with Android on it.
The societal harm from allowing cheap silent tracking of people is greater than the benefit of recovering stolen bags.
> Apple even provide a handy Android app for locating them.
Took them half a year and public pressure to develop something. 3 years for a joint standard (DULT) with google after google developed something by themselves.
There is always pressure required for those things...
1. This is so dumb. You can be tracked any number of ways. The AigTag with or without sound is the dumbest way to track someone.
2. Physically disabling the AirTag speaker is soooo easy. It took under 3 minutes to do it on the AirTag I hid on my motorcycle.
3. "An Apology" is more like a weird advertisement (I guess it worked, I read the stupid thing. But, in fairness, I've now blocked their site in a custom ublock filter, so hopefully I never stumble on it again).
4. They have expensive bikes... Why? Who cares? That's not relevant to anything!? Why did they put that in there? Was this written by a 4th grader? Fuck me. I wish I had just read more AI slop instead.
1. There are a million ways to die. But that's no execute for companies to make products that could potentially kill people - in dumb ways.
2. "Easy" is subjective - something easy for one may not be so easy for others.
3. This guy blocked their site in a custom ublock filter... Why? Who cares? That's not relevant to anything!? Why did this guy put that in there? Was this written by a 4th grader?
4. Yea, go read more AI slop, good idea.
I think you missed my point on #4; it was sarcasm, which, to be fair, in our current world, sarcasm can't be discerned from truth, so that's my fault. To be clear, on #4: I do not want AI Slop. I do not want "apologies" as hidden advertisements. AI Slop would have been the lesser of two evils. Still evil.
I've heard one of the more significant concerns is escape from domestic abuse situations. In that case, people are often told to abandon their technology since it may be used to track them - but they might not know about the tracker tile/airtag hidden within a jacket.
I meant, the point of this AirTag noise disabler was to track stolen bikes and stuff. This doesn't help if the thief has a phone. Combined with what you're saying, sounds like this tool was only useful for domestic violence.
Do I? I don't think so... The thing with most criminals is that we only hear about the stupid ones that get caught.
Side note, AirTags are terrible for tracking someone, as noted everywhere else in this thread, they beep, they alert other phones, and you're giving control to Apple.
Here's one with no beeping or phone alerts for $18, cheaper than an AirTag:
Also, even if it were software, what is virtue signaling about this? If they offer some software at any point, they should continue to offer that software to new users in perpetuity?
> Elevation Lab stops selling its AirTag “silencer.”The tool, which Six Colors recently slammed as “appalling,” pierces the AirTag’s speaker, preventing it from emitting sound. While Elevation Lab says it designed the tool to prevent thieves from detecting the presence of an AirTag, it also disables an anti-stalking feature that audibly alerts people when an unknown tracker is following them.
> Elevation Lab says it has stopped selling the tool and will use its “patent on it to prevent anyone else from making one in the future,” according to MacRumors.
Provide the full context when you apologize, not whitewash what you did. Go on a ride on your more expensive than car bike, maybe that will help you reasses your product ideation.
I wonder why no one writes that all UWB devices - airtags, phones, headphones - form the opportunistic P2P network perfect for mass surveillance. Best case scenario, all phones and airtags can be localized on demand by FBI - yes, the current one. Worst case scenario, by FSB.
Feels oddly concerning and complicit that MacRumors would willingly say “yeah we knew it existed but we didn’t want to publicize it” to let them slip it into the market in the first place.
If only journalists wanted to try to do their job instead of regurgitating Bloomberg’s trash rumors.
The standards you walk past are the standards you accept, and MR must accept that stalking is cool.
Did you actually read the article? It’s very critical of the technology. It feels ‘oddly concerning and complicit’ (not to mention disingenuous) that you are totally unaware of the criticisms within it. In absolutely no way does this article promote stalking. If you read the article, your reading skills need a lot of work.
"We did not cover the launch of the Elevation Lab Silencer because we didn't want to publicize an accessory that does away with the AirTag 's anti-stalking feature"
So they knew it launched (from Elevation Lab announcing it) and decided not to run a story at that time to criticize it themselves... try again?
Running a story after the product is pulled and the outrage launches is a bad look for the entire tech press out there that let it slide.
Do you think if a stalker found out about the AirTag silencer from an article they would decide not to use it because the article was critical? They made the choice that publicizing it would lead to harm, so didn't.
Streisand effect... why would you write an article about a product you don't want people to know about? What end result would you foresee in doing that, logically?
You expect way too much of journalists. Mostly rightfully so, but -- it's not really possible for journalists to publish everything they know. Going through the editing, investigation, cuts... it's just not tenable.
It says right there in the blog post - bike theft prevention.
AirTags are less useful for that use-case right now since the bike thief will get notified of the existence of the tracker on the bike once they transport it, and are hence prompted to find and remove the tag.
The blog post said bike theft prevention, yes. I'm not familiar with the ways AirTags work, so I had absolutely no idea how "silencing" an AirTag would help with that. I actually came here to the comments in the hopes of finding an explanation (which you thankfully included).
I think half the comments still miss what the "notified" part means. It's not jut an iPhone notification that a tag is following you. The tag literally beeps loudly, to help the thief locate it.
I think the idea was to intentionally disable the speaker in an AirTag you own. The use-case that I think they were describing would be to make it more difficult for a thief to find the AirTag and remove it. Thus, you'd be able to track your stolen bike for longer (and have a better change of finding it).
Of course, this would also make it easier for someone to disable a speaker and track a person without their knowledge, making it more difficult for that person to find a stealthy AirTag.
I'm not surprised that someone didn't think this through. I am surprised at how many people this must have gotten by to make it into production. You'd think that with any AirTag related product, privacy would be more central to the planning.
The audible tone can interfere with other stalking-adjacent use cases - for instance use for pet tags, for tracking children's backpacks, and so on.
It actually doesn't help as much for anti-theft, because a thief still might be smart enough at this point to check their phone for AirTag notifications. The audible tone may not even hit in a theft instance.
The outrage feels misplaced. The way to stop evil people abusing your global track-anything network is to not have a global track-anything network. Apple PR must be on yellow alert right now feeling glad they’ve dodged a bullet.
Imagine if Meta did this instead. They could network their smart glasses and leverage their ubiquity to help people find lost pets — but strictly only lost pets, not people — but then Something Labs might ship a tool to make a person's face look pet-like enough to turn Find My Pet into Find My Ex.
> The way to stop evil people abusing your global track-anything network is to not have a global track-anything network.
Or, to have a global track-anything network, and recognize this is the wrong level to try and solve the abuse problem.
> Apple PR must be on yellow alert right now feeling glad they’ve dodged a bullet.
Nah, they knew about this from the start - that's why they nerfed the whole design to the point it barely has any use case; otherwise they'd be buried with complaints and horror stories and media criticism, and the device would've never reached the market.
> We have removed the product and will use our patent on it to prevent anyone else from making one in the future.
I am not sure I follow the unique technological aspects of this solution. The last time I needed to silence a beeping contraption, I broke out the cordless drill and ran it through the offending PCB element. Air tags seem affordable enough to practice this operation a few times. Not sure what is actually protected here.
It's all from people not understanding the very trivial technology that's is the hardware of an AirTag. Most tech is magic to most people. To be fair, fact that we use electric fields to bend a literal crystal, to make sound, is pretty damn magic. :)
Anyone that knows how a speaker works also knows how to silence an AirTag, without instructions required. Anyone that wants to silence an AirTag can just find one of the hundreds of videos on youtube [1], and spend some minutes carrying out the act.
The removal of this product will stop exactly zero people from silencing an AirTag, besides those that are probably doing it for legitimate purposes. For example, I silenced the one in my car, because I was tired of it constantly beeping anytime someone with a iPhone drove with me (including my family).
Their AirTag Magnetic Mount is arguably just as "dangerous". It can be mounted to the underside of a car in one second and no one inside the car will hear it.
There's a point that comes up often when discussing locks (what's their point if they can easily be opened and/or cut?), namely, that they help keeping honest people honest.
Yes, duct tape exists, but a determined stalker has much better tools anyway. The point is rather the "amateur" stalker, the one who didn't leave the house planning to stalk someone but suddenly decides to attach their backpack tag to someone's car.
Still worth pointing out that the mere existence of the Air tag enabled a level of stalking that didn't exist before.
You'd probably get the notification pretty quickly though, assuming the installer didn't use whatever "silencing" tech this post is apologizing for. My wife usually leaves her purse in the car, and I get the "[Person's] AirTag is moving with you!" notification whenever I leave the house without her. I keep forgetting to trust it or whatever.
What's the best thing to track bike thieves these days? I own 6 bikes (yes one for each type of road I ride ..) and I have never found a good solution?
I can't really understand how one could have been so naive to not see the obvious misuse of this thing in the first place. AirTags started 2021 and the backlash was spectacular. Did they forget about it?
...or didn't they care, like Apple, and just cashed in before the shitstorm?
I've said before, apple should just create a law enforcement mode that one can turn their air tags into. When in law enforcement mode, the tag will not report to your page, but law enforcement can go through legal channels to get the devices location.
To put a device into (or out of) law enforcement mode, can only be done over bluetooth (i.e. in proximity to device)./
FTFA: "The Silencer had a pin located where the AirTag speaker is. The device description instructed users to remove the AirTag battery, apply the Silencer, and hit it with a hammer to cause the pin to pierce the AirTag 's plastic cover and the speaker below."
The device helps you aim the nail and then, presumably, makes a watertight seal around your now-punctured AirTag.
I don't want weaponization of patents regardless of how much "Think of the Children!" and "We must defend the public!" is injected.
white knight with a sword made of patent lawsuits doesn't exist in my world.
It was good of them to decide to stay away from producing the product they realized they didn't want to exist, they should have stopped there instead of villainizing themselves by self-deputizing.
lifeisloving | 17 hours ago
jaredwiener | 17 hours ago
I'm not constantly notified that my keys are with me. But if you stuck an AirTag in my backpack, my phone would tell me.
forsalebypwner | 17 hours ago
msteffen | 17 hours ago
grumbelbart2 | 16 hours ago
kalleboo | 17 hours ago
froh | 16 hours ago
cicko | 16 hours ago
klipt | 16 hours ago
ilamont | an hour ago
Many dumb thieves out there, like the airport workers who steal luggage and take it home.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=airport...
gbalduzzi | 16 hours ago
Barbing | 16 hours ago
TeMPOraL | 16 hours ago
In particular I'm guessing you can't use it to track your kid's backpack either; for that, you should instead buy your 7yo their own iPhone.
> Gotta go for a mini GPS tracker or something for protecting $$$$(+) bikes
The same one actual stalkers would use?
dwaite | 15 hours ago
You can - there will be spurious phone notifications and audible notifications.
TeMPOraL | 15 hours ago
hluska | 7 hours ago
kalleboo | 14 hours ago
Barbing | 14 hours ago
Right, like “cut your dinner with a knife, the one actual murderers would use.”
They had to balance needs of us owners of things and needs of abused partners and the general public. Other trackers have been available long long before AirTags and haven’t gone away since Apple’s introduction.
As it stands, plenty are still very upset about the existence of AirTags. Especially given the ease of disabling the speaker and the lack of Android notifications at launch.
mahboi | 16 hours ago
dwaite | 15 hours ago
tuvix | 15 hours ago
kalleboo | 14 hours ago
mahboi | 5 hours ago
philipkglass | 5 hours ago
drusepth | 16 hours ago
nazgul17 | 16 hours ago
sparqlittlestar | 16 hours ago
gfody | 15 hours ago
pnw | 16 hours ago
Apple even provide a handy Android app for locating them.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.trac...
Gigachad | 16 hours ago
The societal harm from allowing cheap silent tracking of people is greater than the benefit of recovering stolen bags.
gfody | 16 hours ago
RIMR | an hour ago
No, I do not want the solution to this problem to be adding AirTags to the government panopticon.
ncr100 | 15 hours ago
Krasnol | 14 hours ago
Took them half a year and public pressure to develop something. 3 years for a joint standard (DULT) with google after google developed something by themselves.
There is always pressure required for those things...
kylec | 17 hours ago
elictronic | 15 hours ago
seizethecheese | 5 hours ago
dgellow | 53 minutes ago
mmh0000 | 17 hours ago
2. Physically disabling the AirTag speaker is soooo easy. It took under 3 minutes to do it on the AirTag I hid on my motorcycle.
3. "An Apology" is more like a weird advertisement (I guess it worked, I read the stupid thing. But, in fairness, I've now blocked their site in a custom ublock filter, so hopefully I never stumble on it again).
4. They have expensive bikes... Why? Who cares? That's not relevant to anything!? Why did they put that in there? Was this written by a 4th grader? Fuck me. I wish I had just read more AI slop instead.
zhiyan | 16 hours ago
mmh0000 | 6 hours ago
"Easy" is not subjective in this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vAQNedIa0o
Pry and poke.
I think you missed my point on #4; it was sarcasm, which, to be fair, in our current world, sarcasm can't be discerned from truth, so that's my fault. To be clear, on #4: I do not want AI Slop. I do not want "apologies" as hidden advertisements. AI Slop would have been the lesser of two evils. Still evil.
mahboi | 16 hours ago
dwaite | 15 hours ago
mahboi | 15 hours ago
nathanaldensr | 10 hours ago
mmh0000 | 7 hours ago
The goal isn't to hide that someone is tracking them after they stole my motorcycle.
The goal was to make it ungodly difficult to actually find the AirTag hidden on the motorcycle.
mahboi | 5 hours ago
hliyan | 16 hours ago
InsideOutSanta | 16 hours ago
mmh0000 | 7 hours ago
Side note, AirTags are terrible for tracking someone, as noted everywhere else in this thread, they beep, they alert other phones, and you're giving control to Apple.
Here's one with no beeping or phone alerts for $18, cheaper than an AirTag:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CG2D8FZ5
augment_me | 16 hours ago
While I understand the reasoning this is just virtue signaling in a time where software is free.
jakelazaroff | 16 hours ago
Also, even if it were software, what is virtue signaling about this? If they offer some software at any point, they should continue to offer that software to new users in perpetuity?
altmanaltman | 16 hours ago
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1010718/elevation-labs-stops-s...
Provide the full context when you apologize, not whitewash what you did. Go on a ride on your more expensive than car bike, maybe that will help you reasses your product ideation.
monideas | 16 hours ago
> also disables an anti-stalking feature that audibly alerts people
It sounds like piercing the speaker is the thing that disables the audible alert and the intent was not to help stalkers.
Perenti | 16 hours ago
troupo | 16 hours ago
atemerev | 16 hours ago
Barbing | 16 hours ago
kotaKat | 13 hours ago
If only journalists wanted to try to do their job instead of regurgitating Bloomberg’s trash rumors.
The standards you walk past are the standards you accept, and MR must accept that stalking is cool.
hluska | 8 hours ago
If you didn’t read the article, you’re a troll.
kotaKat | 7 hours ago
"We did not cover the launch of the Elevation Lab Silencer because we didn't want to publicize an accessory that does away with the AirTag 's anti-stalking feature"
So they knew it launched (from Elevation Lab announcing it) and decided not to run a story at that time to criticize it themselves... try again?
Running a story after the product is pulled and the outrage launches is a bad look for the entire tech press out there that let it slide.
BobaFloutist | 3 hours ago
neaden | an hour ago
wavemode | 12 minutes ago
chaps | an hour ago
cloudie78 | 16 hours ago
valvar | 16 hours ago
occz | 16 hours ago
AirTags are less useful for that use-case right now since the bike thief will get notified of the existence of the tracker on the bike once they transport it, and are hence prompted to find and remove the tag.
avhception | 16 hours ago
TeMPOraL | 15 hours ago
mbreese | 16 hours ago
Of course, this would also make it easier for someone to disable a speaker and track a person without their knowledge, making it more difficult for that person to find a stealthy AirTag.
I'm not surprised that someone didn't think this through. I am surprised at how many people this must have gotten by to make it into production. You'd think that with any AirTag related product, privacy would be more central to the planning.
elictronic | 15 hours ago
cloudie78 | 15 hours ago
Was missing the “make it more difficult for a thief to find the AirTag and remove it” part.
Cheers!
dwaite | 15 hours ago
It actually doesn't help as much for anti-theft, because a thief still might be smart enough at this point to check their phone for AirTag notifications. The audible tone may not even hit in a theft instance.
dang | an hour ago
Can you please edit out swipes from your HN comments and stick to posting thoughtfully? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
gorgoiler | 16 hours ago
https://sixcolors.com/post/2026/10/silencing-airtags-enables...
The outrage feels misplaced. The way to stop evil people abusing your global track-anything network is to not have a global track-anything network. Apple PR must be on yellow alert right now feeling glad they’ve dodged a bullet.
Imagine if Meta did this instead. They could network their smart glasses and leverage their ubiquity to help people find lost pets — but strictly only lost pets, not people — but then Something Labs might ship a tool to make a person's face look pet-like enough to turn Find My Pet into Find My Ex.
TeMPOraL | 15 hours ago
Agreed.
> The way to stop evil people abusing your global track-anything network is to not have a global track-anything network.
Or, to have a global track-anything network, and recognize this is the wrong level to try and solve the abuse problem.
> Apple PR must be on yellow alert right now feeling glad they’ve dodged a bullet.
Nah, they knew about this from the start - that's why they nerfed the whole design to the point it barely has any use case; otherwise they'd be buried with complaints and horror stories and media criticism, and the device would've never reached the market.
otikik | 15 hours ago
We live in different worlds
JumpCrisscross | 41 minutes ago
iPhones notify you when someone else's AirTag is following you.
bob1029 | 16 hours ago
I am not sure I follow the unique technological aspects of this solution. The last time I needed to silence a beeping contraption, I broke out the cordless drill and ran it through the offending PCB element. Air tags seem affordable enough to practice this operation a few times. Not sure what is actually protected here.
nomel | an hour ago
Anyone that knows how a speaker works also knows how to silence an AirTag, without instructions required. Anyone that wants to silence an AirTag can just find one of the hundreds of videos on youtube [1], and spend some minutes carrying out the act.
The removal of this product will stop exactly zero people from silencing an AirTag, besides those that are probably doing it for legitimate purposes. For example, I silenced the one in my car, because I was tired of it constantly beeping anytime someone with a iPhone drove with me (including my family).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to++silence...
steve_taylor | 15 hours ago
TeMPOraL | 15 hours ago
probably_wrong | 15 hours ago
Yes, duct tape exists, but a determined stalker has much better tools anyway. The point is rather the "amateur" stalker, the one who didn't leave the house planning to stalk someone but suddenly decides to attach their backpack tag to someone's car.
Still worth pointing out that the mere existence of the Air tag enabled a level of stalking that didn't exist before.
nozzlegear | 7 hours ago
orliesaurus | 15 hours ago
teen | 15 hours ago
xtiansimon | 11 hours ago
jareklupinski | 11 hours ago
mikestew | an hour ago
jareklupinski | 16 minutes ago
jrflowers | 15 hours ago
lmao “In lieu of direct sales we will be recouping the cost of our hammer-as-a-stalking-accessory patent through litigation”
Krasnol | 14 hours ago
...or didn't they care, like Apple, and just cashed in before the shitstorm?
compsciphd | 12 hours ago
To put a device into (or out of) law enforcement mode, can only be done over bluetooth (i.e. in proximity to device)./
BobaFloutist | 3 hours ago
clunkclunk | an hour ago
amelius | an hour ago
What prevents anyone from selling a device but distributing the software through a separate channel?
beAbU | an hour ago
amelius | an hour ago
JumpCrisscross | 44 minutes ago
The device helps you aim the nail and then, presumably, makes a watertight seal around your now-punctured AirTag.
dgellow | 56 minutes ago
incanus77 | 54 minutes ago
Johnny555 | 49 minutes ago
Doesn't the patent just document how it works so individuals can create and release 3D models of the device so anyone can create their own?
jubilanti | 37 minutes ago
serf | 28 minutes ago
white knight with a sword made of patent lawsuits doesn't exist in my world.
It was good of them to decide to stay away from producing the product they realized they didn't want to exist, they should have stopped there instead of villainizing themselves by self-deputizing.