In doing some reading of posts in Subreddit and on the Internet in general, I’ve read mixed things on how well Apple’s Bluetooth tracker works in practice.
Some geeks say that it works much better in an open-air parking lot as opposed to a parking garage. Even I second this – that it’s much easier to locate a car in busy parking lots where there are bountiful iPhone users.
Across my research, I’ve also read that it’s not super practical to use precision location to find a parked car, as you need to be pretty close for that to work. Also, wouldn’t you be able to have visual contact with your car before being able to use that feature?
However, that doesn’t mean that an AirTag or any other Bluetooth tracker is pointless. It’s always good to have an approximate location of the car and a general direction if you don’t need to mark the location on a map or try and remember the block.
So, the question “can an AirTag in your car help you find it in a parking lot” is quite variable. Let’s find out what Redditors say about it.
Anecdote #1
“superhated” quotes that AirTags are mostly good for a general location than anything else because you do need to be near the AirTag for the percussion finding to really work.
He exclaims that in single-level style parking lots it’s decent, but can depend on how busy it’s been, and how recently AirTag catches signals from your iPhone.
“superhated” further states that he had it one time when he parked, but the AirTag never got a recent update and the lot wasn’t very busy. He had his phone out, but it wasn’t until “superhated” was next to the vehicle it updated. But, totally opposite at a multi-level garage at the mall, where it would update every few minutes because people were going nearby. Only issue of course was no altitude data, so you’d still need to remember that.
Anecdote #2
Another Redditor says that he left one in his car parked on a city road. Sometimes it said that his car is blocks away. But, when he peeked out of the window, it was still there.
Anecdote #3
Yet, another Reddit user, “onemightypersona”, says that he uses it for a similar purpose.
“I can tell you that I can find my car in a large parking lot only with the help of someone’s iPhone passing by. For direct connection, my phone needs to be very close to it”, exclaims onemightpersona.
He further explains that he leaves his car in a not-so-busy parking lot with maybe 50 cars and locations get updated every couple to ten minutes, but your mileage may vary based on how many iPhone users are nearby.
Anecdote #4
“badoctet” states that he has an AirTag in his car, and it has never failed him. Always shows the location accurately. He says that he must be lucky and always have lots of iPhone users around his car.