Small little video today on Apple's small little AirTags. Apparently,
these tiny little pucks can help you find anything you might have lost like:
keys, purses, pets...ambition. I have the 4 pack in front of me which costs about $100.
And for that price you might want to just practice not losing your stuff a little bit harder.
Or, you know, pay me $100 and I'll just come hold your keys. I'm mostly
joking though since these kind of actually do some pretty cool things. Let's get started.
[Intro]
Right out of the box they look pretty good. Simple white design,
with a super shiny stainless steel metal plate, with the Apple logo right front and
center. You might forget your keys, but you'll never forget who owns the world you live in.
Of course this was designed by Apple in California. And assembled in China, and functions
with Bluetooth low energy alongside the ultra wide band. We'll get to those more in a second.
As you can see, the scratches made from my razor blade on the back of the AirTag is pretty visible.
I think we should see what level it really starts scratching at.
I'll grab my Mohs picks and start with the level 2 plastic tip pick,
and as we can see, there are no markings except for the little scratch near the apple bite that
must have happened during shipping, or from my own microfiber cleaning cloth.
Moving up to a level 3 copper pick, we start to see scratches on the surface of the stainless
steel. It's not so much that the stainless itself is soft, it's just the shiny finish
is so pristine that it's easily susceptible to blemishes. And some of these abrasions probably
came from the dust on my cleaning cloth...which is supposed to be clean. So basically just plan
on this finish not being pristine for long. Not a big deal, of course. I'll talk more later in the
video about how to hide the scratches. The metal plate is about the same size as a U.S. quarter.
The back of the AirTag is rounded as well and made from white plastic...which
does a better job of hiding the scratches. Getting inside the AirTag is easy enough. This
might be the first user replaceable battery in an Apple product since,
well, ever. Thumbs up for that. With a little twist we reveal the Panasonic 3 volt CR2032,
and this battery could supposedly last for about a year before needing to be switched out. The rest
of the housing is slightly more difficult to get inside of. This thing is IP67 water resistant,
so keeping track of your goldfish is an option. Finding Nemo would have been a much shorter
video if his dad had one of these bad boys. With the inner plastics off, we get our first
look at what seems to be another battery, but it's actually a small speaker for the tones that play
when you're trying to find whatever it is that you're trying to find. It's a real easy way to
cheat at hide and seek by the way. Just put one of these on your kid. It'll be a new game
called Bill Gates and the Microchip...except for it's actually Tim Cook and an AirTag.
The main board is actually pretty hard to remove with it being glued in place and all.
But eventually we can get it separated from the plastic housing...while
accidentally ripping both copper speaker wires in the process.
Apple could have totally done some Iron Man level Easter eggs in here with the Apple Campus.
But besides them both being circles, that's about all the similarities we get. Here's the magnetic
portion of the speaker, and you can see the copper coils that drive the speaker right below it.
The circuit board is pretty nifty. This is what contains the Bluetooth chip and the ultra wide
band. The difference between the two, while both pretty similar, is that the ultra wide band's
signal is easier to measure precise locations with than it is with Bluetooth signal alone.
Your iPhone will measure the time it takes for the Ultra wide signal to pass from the AirTag to the
phone, and that signal strength measurement is how it can pinpoint the exact location of the AirTag.
The last thing inside of the AirTag is the NFC coil on the back of the black plastics.
So even if you are further than say, 30 feet or 10 meters from your lost goldfish, Apple's network of
phones and computers acts like a giant skynet...I mean, acts like a giant net that can help you find
your missing item. Even Android phones can jump in on the action and scan this NFC to
see who the AirTag belongs to, if you've allowed that feature. It's kind of like a luggage tag,
but with extra steps. And then you might even get your lost item back, assuming, of course, that the
other person is a decent human. But judging by the people who can't be bothered to wear a mask
during the pandemic, you got a 50/50 chance. And I might be a little biased, but the easiest and
coolest way to hide the scratches on the AirTags is with one of my Teardown Skins from dbrand.
It's probably our easiest Skin to apply yet, and lets you see all the cool insides of the AirTag
from the outsides. Instead of the AirTag looking like a white button from your grandma's fur coat,
it's now a fine tuned location tracker fit for a sci-fi nerd. I'll leave a link down
in the description. We probably have a Teardown Skin for your phone as well.
Would you ever buy a $30 location tracker for your keys?
I'm curious. Let me know down in the comments. Come hang out with
me on Instagram and Twitter. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.