I lost a bunch of keys today. It sucks and it’s gonna cost me a lot of money to replace the locks. I want to to add an airtag-like device to my key ring in the future. However I don’t know of any device that works in a similar fashion, either through bluetooth or GPS, that works with Graphene and doesn’t require some kind of privacy invading online subscription.

Do you have any advice on privacy respecting alternatives to airtags?

  • GaumBeist@lemmy.ml
    17·
    1 day ago

    A few answers say “they aren’t private by design,” but don’t really go into the “why.” There’s the obvious “it’s an electronic tracking device, duh” reason, but there’s also a more nuanced reason:

    Airtags are able to be picked up almost anywhere because they connect to the nearest bluetooth-enabled Apple device, and then send location info across the internet to you. Without this functionality (the ability of any and every Apple device to locate it), they wouldn’t have any way to send their location back to the owner.

    Your best “privacy respecting” alternatives are something that uses meshtastic (and hoping there’s enough repeaters near you), something that uses cellular data and GPS (which is about as privacy-respecting as Airtags are), or just a key finder/beeper (which only works within a small radius)

    • Auli@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      I mean if you look at the white paper they seem pretty private by design. Unless people are seeing stuff I missed.

    • ISOmorph@feddit.orgOP
      1·
      1 day ago

      Thanks for the explanation and advice. I’ll get a beeper while I’ll get into meshtastic and can get tracking working that way.

      • Aussiemandeus@aussie.zone
        1·
        7 hours ago

        I have a itag pros, they’re no good for what I wanted but they don’t require a subscription and you can see where you last had them. Unfortunately they beep whenever they go out of range and the range isn’t far

      • doodoo_wizard@lemmy.ml
        2·
        15 hours ago

        Hey I do meshtastic and tried it for object detection and used a homemade beeper and an off the shelf tile beeper and I ended up going to airtags instead.

        You really will be better served by just using airtags.

        If you can be clear about what kind of privacy invasion you’re trying to avoid I can help you figure out how to make that work.

        • ISOmorph@feddit.orgOP
          2·
          11 hours ago

          Thanks for the help and advice. What was the issue with your meshtastic experiment? If it’s location granularity that’s something I might be prepared to deal with.

          My privacy expectations are as follows:

          • No account needed with any major tech monopoly
          • No app where any data other than tag location is transmitted through the internet. Ideally the data transmission would have e2ee.