Does anyone use AIR TAGS? Do they work well on the Ships?

[Parentcruiser]

Have lost luggage a couple times (real pain in the %$#%) and thought putting the airtags in the luggage might be a good idea... as I understand they 'ping' thru any nearby iPhones (which there are many).

Have you done it and if so, how did it work, as we are on Oasis tomorrow?

[firefly333]

The cruise lines dont lose a lot of luggage. Are you saying you lost luggage? It wouldnt hurt, but probably doesnt help. You might know sooner when your luggage got delivered?

[artvlay]

Is there a similar product for android phones? 

[crewsweeper]

2 minutes ago, artvlay said:

Is there a similar product for android phones? 

TILE.  Work for both IOS and Android.

 

Yes, you can lose luggage on cruise ships.  Often set out in wrong passageway or near wrong cabin door.   Air tags or Tile will help in locating.  And at debarkation, sometimes luggage gets placed in wrong area.  Helps there too.

[A&L_Ont]

Would it work well with all the steel of the ships construction?  Just curious. 
 

[BND]

Lost luggage is a rarity.  30+  cruises and never had a bag lost.

 

Funny story about luggage though is we have friends who just left out of Amsterdam on a cruise.  I don't know which line.  They got a knock on their door after boarding only to be told that one of their bags got dumped in the river and everything was being cleaned for them.  Their other bag made it fine.  Apparently, a new forklift operator tipped almost completely over and dumped some luggage into the water.  I'm guessing air tags don't work well when wet lol.

[Parentcruiser]

Thanks all.

[colesc15]

43 minutes ago, Parentcruiser said:

Have lost luggage a couple times (real pain in the %$#%) and thought putting the airtags in the luggage might be a good idea... as I understand they 'ping' thru any nearby iPhones (which there are many).

Have you done it and if so, how did it work, as we are on Oasis tomorrow?

We actually used Samsung smart tags for the first time last month on Odyssey and they worked well. It was nice knowing where the luggage was in the airport and was also nice knowing when the luggage arrived at the room vs periodically checking throughout the day. 

[Parentcruiser]

you don't have to have the Internet package to track an AirTag on the ship.... do u?

[flamingos]

Thanks, we'll be using our for the airport - that's how we knew our luggage got left in the hotel with our last airport transfer on another cruise line!  It was hairy, but they got it to us with minutes to spare, and we will never travel without them again.

 

 

[steveru621]

Not sure if knowing where your luggage is located if it's not in the same city.

[TravelGirlinDallas]

We used AirTags on our most recent cruise. I was more worried about the airline than the cruise line losing our bags. It was great to have the peace of mind to know where our bags were at any time.

[M&JfromSDL]

I used an AirTag for the first time this summer while flying in Europe.  I've had a cruise line lose my luggage when I did luggage valet at the end of a sailing.  The AirTag would have been somewhat helpful for that.

[jerseygirl629]

We bought airtags for our luggage this trip but, mostly for the airport (Flying from NYC to Seattle). Will definitely keep them in the luggage for transfer to the ship 🙂

[twangster]

Airtags have no means to communicate directly to the internet and they don't have GPS chips in them.  They rely on an iPhone being a host to communicate their position.  

 

An iPhone near an Airtag will detect the Airtag and report it's discovery to iCloud if that iPhone passing by has an internet connection.  This is done without consent or awareness of the passing iPhone - it's baked into the iPhone OS.  iCloud uses the position or GPS fix of the iPhone that detected the Airtag to record the location of the Airtag.  If the iPhone has a poor GPS fix iCloud doesn't note that, it assumes the iPhone GPS fix is right.

 

I used Airtags on a Seattle based cruise to Alaska.  My luggage appeared to be in a marina next to the Smith Bay cruise terminal.  If I didn't know how Airtags work I might have assumed someone stole my luggage and was going through it on a sailboat in the private marina next door.  

 

 

My red backpack was with me in the cabin (a different Airtag in my backpack), the black suitcase Airtag was the location that iCloud recorded for my luggage at this moment.

 

What I suspect happened is that my airtag was detected by an iPhone that was in the pocket of a dock worker.  Maybe it was the forklift driver while my luggage was being loaded on the ship.  Given the iPhone in the pocket the phone did not have a reliable GPS fix and the phone thought it was next door over at the sailboat marina so that is what that that iPhone reported to the cloud for my Airtag position.

 

Five minutes after this Airtag location was recorded when I checked again my Airtag was reported to be "with me".  I went out of my cabin and looked down the hallway and there was my luggage sitting three cabins away.  

 

 

  

Edited August 4, 2022 by twangster

[RobInMN]

I have an Android and purchased Tile Pro's for our luggage. 

On the flight over, I was able to detect our luggage as being in range from my airplane seat, so I knew they were on board.

On the flight back, I was not, but at some point, after using the restroom mid flight, I did see that I did finally get a ping from them, yea!

In the baggage claim, they were only good for knowing that they were coming very, very soon (like already on the belt).

[topnole]

These devices work well enough that people are using them to track others.   There are much cheaper knock off versions and nefarious people are slipping them in the belongings of others (hand bag, back pack, etc.) so they can track them.  I read an article about this happening in Disney not that long ago.  Quite scary.  Yet another unintended consequence of technology that enables horrible behavior.  At some point we will all probably need a device to detect these devices.  

[psac]

43 minutes ago, topnole said:

These devices work well enough that people are using them to track others.   There are much cheaper knock off versions and nefarious people are slipping them in the belongings of others (hand bag, back pack, etc.) so they can track them.  I read an article about this happening in Disney not that long ago.  Quite scary.  Yet another unintended consequence of technology that enables horrible behavior.  At some point we will all probably need a device to detect these devices.  

An iPhone will tell you if an AirTag that is not yours is “traveling with you.”  Agreed though, it’s sad that any piece of new technology will be used for nefarious reasons sooner or later, and in this case, sooner. 
 

 

[topnole]

3 minutes ago, psac said:

An iPhone will tell you if an AirTag that is not yours is “traveling with you.”  Agreed though, it’s sad that any piece of new technology will be used for nefarious reasons sooner or later, and in this case, sooner. 
 

 

Yeah.  But the $5 knock off is what will be used.  Your iPhone isn’t going to protect you.  It’s gonna take situational awareness which is seemingly altogether lacking nowadays.  Even that isn’t enough in many cases.  

[Djsmrs]

4 hours ago, A&L_Ont said:

Would it work well with all the steel of the ships construction?  Just curious. 
 

Air Tags use other people's cell phones to obtain location information - so the steel shouldn't matter.   It would rely more on whether or not crew "near" your bag have an apple phone and have it connected to data or wifi

 

We've used them (not on ships) but there's often no update while on the aircraft - because once loaded there isn't anyone in the hold for the tag to update to - so it'll show your bags in your departing city until they're offloaded and near an iphone in your arrival city.   This slight delay can cause a slight heart attack - lol.

[twangster]

1 hour ago, topnole said:

Yeah.  But the $5 knock off is what will be used.  Your iPhone isn’t going to protect you.  It’s gonna take situational awareness which is seemingly altogether lacking nowadays.  Even that isn’t enough in many cases.  

 

The Disney case you cite was foiled when her iPhone notified her that a tracking device unassociated with her account had been near her for a while.

 

Cell phones are themselves tracking devices and cell phone companies routinely sell anonymous data including locations data.  If you know where someone lives it doesn't take long for the anonymous part to be no so anonymous and now you can track someone.  Our government does this all day long with the "anonymous" location data they buy from all the cell phone companies.    

 

if you don't want to be tracked, lose all technology and stop carrying a phone.  

[publicpersona]

I doubt AirTag technology would work well on a cruise ship. It requires that the person with the iPhone near it has internet connectivity. On embarkation day, maybe that would be true but even if the cell towers were able to triangulate on a position, it wouldn't tell you what deck, and more likely just let you know your luggage was somewhere on the front half of the ship at best. Once underway, even iPhones with wi-fi package aren't going to have accurate location information. It would be most useful on debarkation day trying to find your luggage in the terminal. Then, you'd get general location as normal but would then switch to ultra wideband to show you exactly.

 

Those thinking about Tile should realize that it relies on someone near it running the Tile app which is a much, much smaller number compared to the number of people with iPhones.

[BND]

48 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

The Disney case you cite was foiled when her iPhone notified her that a tracking device unassociated with her account had been near her for a while.

 

Cell phones are themselves tracking devices and cell phone companies routinely sell anonymous data including locations data.  If you know where someone lives it doesn't take long for the anonymous part to be no so anonymous and now you can track someone.  Our government does this all day long with the "anonymous" location data they buy from all the cell phone companies.    

 

if you don't want to be tracked, lose all technology and stop carrying a phone.  

Google knows where I travel via my Pixel 6 phone.  I get a "report" every month about where I've been, usually including restaurants, wineries, cities, etc.

[miyanc]

6 hours ago, artvlay said:

Is there a similar product for android phones? 

Samsung has smart tags or they are called something like that. 

[ONECRUISER]

6 hours ago, BND said:

Lost luggage is a rarity.  30+  cruises and never had a bag lost.

 

Funny story about luggage though is we have friends who just left out of Amsterdam on a cruise.  I don't know which line.  They got a knock on their door after boarding only to be told that one of their bags got dumped in the river and everything was being cleaned for them.  Their other bag made it fine.  Apparently, a new forklift operator tipped almost completely over and dumped some luggage into the water.  I'm guessing air tags don't work well when wet lol.

Few yrs back that happened at a Florida Cruise Port also, Oops!