You need to know this. The $29 coin-sized AirTags do not have a defined range. Let me explain it. AirTags work by taking advantage of Apple’s existing network of devices.
This means that AirTags use Bluetooth and NFC or Near-field Communication to communicate with nearby iPhones in the Find My network. So, as long as an AirTag item tracker is within Bluetooth range of anybody’s iPhone (or other Apple device), it can passively communicate with it and then help you locate your missing item’s location.
So yes! The range of AirTags is basically unlimited. But, that doesn’t mean it can track your dog in the wilderness. Yeah, it could, but here’s the catch. You could track your pet or lost item even if it’s in the other corner of the world, only if there were many iPhone users around.
This means that if you were to put the AirTag in your child’s backpack or attach it to a bike, you could easily know where it is if there was any device (iOS 13 or later) near it even if it’s not yours.
However, an iPhone or Apple device needs to be within a range of around 33 feet to connect to any Bluetooth device, according to Apple. If you have an iPhone 11 or a later model, you can even use Precision Tracking to navigate yourself to your lost item without any hassle.
That way, you can navigate to it and see the arrows guiding you to your belonging. In other words, the range on AirTags is functionally infinite as long as there’s someone with an iPhone nearby.
This happens because Tile competitor picks up the location and pings to Apple servers, which will send the location to you. It’s going to ‘piggybacks’ off any nearby iPhones, which work as crowdsourced beacons to ping each other, and then its location is triangulated by its connections and sent back to your iPhone.