Apple revives AirTags with upgraded capabilities

Apple’s AirTags can be put to all sorts of uses: some nefarious but most positive – tracking luggage, stolen property – I even used mine to help my family track me more accurately while I was running the London Marathon back in 2024.

Until today, however, AirTags hadn’t received any further attention since they first launched in April 2021, leading some to suspect the product had been shelved.

In a surprise announcement, however, Apple has revealed that it’s making a second generation of the world’s favourite tracking tag, with upgraded capabilities. The key change is the move to Apple’s second-generation UltraWideBand chip – the same silicon found inside the latest iPhone 17 models and Apple Watch Series 11.

The new chip means iPhone owners will be able to use Precision Finding to locate their items from “up to 50% further away”, while Bluetooth capabilities have been improved, too, boosting the range at which the tags can be detected remotely by devices in Apple’s FindMy network.

The upgrades don’t stop at range, however. A revamped internal design means the noise AirTags make is now far louder – 50% according to Apple – making them easier to find around the house, and the tags make a new chime as well. I was hoping Apple might make a credit-card sized device for tracking your wallet, but unfortunately, that appears still to be a long way off.

Otherwise, everything remains pretty much as it was before, which will come as a relief for anyone who’s invested in AirTag accessories to attach them to their keys, luggage or other property.

They work in exactly the same way, too. Not only can you use AirTags to locate items that are near you, they can also be used to track lost or stolen items by reporting their location via any passing iPhone, via the FindMy network, to your phone.

The latest AirTags are available from today and will cost exactly the same as the previous model. They’re £29 each, or you can pick up a four-pack for £99. We’ll have a review for you just as soon as we can lay our hands on some.

Written By

Jonathan Bray

Head of reviews at Expert Reviews, Jon has been testing and writing about products since before most of you were born (well, only if you were born after 1996). In that time he’s tested and reviewed hundreds of laptops, PCs, smartphones, vacuum cleaners, coffee machines, doorbells, cameras and more. He’s worked on websites since the early days of tech, writing game reviews for AOL and hardware reviews for PC Pro, Computer Buyer and other print publications. He’s also had work published in Trusted Reviews, Computing Which? and The Observer. And yet, even after so many years in the industry, there’s still nothing more he loves than getting to grips with a new product and putting it through its paces.

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