For many, an AirTag has become a rather invaluable tool in the effort to keep track of your belongings. From throwing one in a backpack or putting them in luggage when traveling around, the AirTag is extremely useful. The integration with Apple’s Find My network is as seamless as one could hope, but what can do you when you find one and need to return AirTag to original owner?
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What Is An AirTag?
The AirTag is Apple’s competitor to the Tile trackers. Explained further, the AirTag makes use of Apple’s Find My network using the ultra-wideband chip (U1) that originally debuted in the iPhone 11. Since its debut, the U1 chip is found in all sorts of devices, ranging from the iPhone to HomePod Mini and even the Apple Watch.
This technology is a low-power method of connectivity to communicate with other devices with the same ultra-wideband chip. While it’s great for these devices to be able to communicate, there needs to be some way for you to interact with both of these. And that’s where the Find My app comes into play.
Between using the U1 chip in the AirTag and in your iPhone, Precision Finding is the method for actually locating the AirTag. For now, it’s only a one-way street, meaning that you can’t use the AirTag to find your iPhone. Although it would be pretty awesome to have a button on an AirTag to have your iPhone make some noise. But hopefully, we’ll see something similar in the future.
How to Return AirTag to Original Owner
While it’s extremely easy to track an AirTag from your iPhone using the Find My app, the same can’t be said when it comes to attempting to return AirTag to original owner. Without getting into any malicious practices, you might end up just finding an AirTag on the sidewalk and want to get it back into the hands of its owner.
More recently, Apple has started to integrate features that make it possible to try and return the AirTag to its original owner. Instead of using the Find My app, you’ll need to instead rely on the NFC chip embedded in the AirTag and hold it to the back of your iPhone.
When holding the AirTag to the back of your iPhone, a Safari prompt will appear at the top of your iPhone. All you need to do from there is tap the prompt and you will be taken into Apple webpage. From here, you’ll be taken to found.apple.com, and the phone number or email address of the owner should appear, along with the AirTag’s serial number.
How To Reset AirTag
In some instances, you might come across an AirTag, and the owner does not want to go through trying to get it back. Or maybe a friend has a spare AirTag but didn’t remember to reset it before giving it to you. No matter what the reason, there are a couple of steps that you can take if you want to reset an AirTag. The first relies on the Find My app, and here’s how you can use the app to reset the AirTag:
- Open the Find My app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Select the name of the AirTag that you want to remove from the list of devices.
- Swipe up from the bottom to reveal the AirTag settings.
- Tap Remove Item at the bottom of the page.
- Tap Remove again to confirm.
Surprisingly enough, there’s actually another method for resetting an AirTag which has nothing to do with the Find My app. In fact, you don’t need to use any Apple device in order to reset the AirTag and can do so with nothing more than the AirTag itself.
- With the AirTag in your hand, press down on the side with the steel backing.
- While pressing down, rotate counterclockwise until the back cover stops turning.
- Pull apart the two halves of the AirTag.
- Remove the battery from the AirTag.
- Place the battery back into the AirTag.
- Push down on the battery until it makes a sound.
- After the sound is made, remove the pressure from the battery.
- Repeat the process four more times, including the removal and replacement of the battery until you hear a sound.
- After the sound has been made five times, place the cover back onto the AirTag.
- Press down on the cover and rotate clockwise until it locks into place.
If you go through the process of manually resetting an AirTag, it’s important to follow the steps precisely. In the event that this doesn’t work, you can leave the battery out for a few minutes and then try manually resetting it again.
Andrew Myrick is a freelance writer based on the East Coast of the US. He enjoys everything to do with technology, including tablets, smartphones, and everything in between. Perhaps his favorite past-time is having a never-ending supply of different keyboards and gaming handhelds that end up collecting more dust than the consoles that are being emulated.
Fay Crawforth says
I have found an apple tag and it is only showing a serial number. How do i find it’s owner to return it?