I notice location shift of an AirTag reported position after being Crowd-Sourced located.

Question

I notice location shift of an AirTag reported position after being Crowd-Sourced located.

I am learning how to properly use AirTAgs and experimenting.

I left an AirTag along a busy road at a stop sign. When notified as found, I notice that the AirTAg pin-in-the-map has moved away from its real location. Its like the iPhone that connected in a moving car reports the position down the road at the finders location instead of the actual location. The reported position changes again when re-discovered at a later time.

Is this behavior what I should expect or am I encountering a bug?

iPhone 11 Pro

Posted on Jan 15, 2022 10:40 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Lawrence Finch

Level 10

212,672 points

Jan 16, 2022 9:07 AM in response to Dan Mckinney1

Crowd-sourced reports are based on the location of the phone that found the AirTag. That phone has no way of knowing where the AirTag itself is, only that it is within detection distance. Typically this will be within 10 meters (~30 feet), but depending on the topology of the area it could be further. If the phone that found the AirTag has Ultra Wide Band support it can be closer.

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Answer 2

Jan 15, 2022 10:43 AM in response to Dan Mckinney1

I guess it would be technically possible, but I suspect in future Apple will improve their algorithms to avoid issues like this.

Every few or so minutes (I think it’s something like 50 minutes) an iPhone would check to see if there is an offline Find My capable device in range. But this particular iPhone happened to be in a vehicle. The cellular connection wasn’t that fast, and so by the time it was reported, the iPhone reported it’s own GPS location further down the road…

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Answer 3

Jan 15, 2022 11:22 AM in response to GreeniusGenius

That sounds like a reasonable explanation. My observation is that the next time the AirTag is spotted, the location is the real location or at another phantom location depending on the delay and speed of vehicle.

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Answer 4

Jan 16, 2022 9:04 AM in response to Dan Mckinney1

With more experimentation, I think I have figured out what to expect when locating lost items. Bottom line is that a crowd source find will report the AirTag location as the place where the iPhone pings the lost AirTag. That makes sense but then the long distance sensitivity of the iPhone/AirTag works against the person looking for the lost tag. I documented finds today at 275 feet from the phone to the AirTag. The "pin in the map" will drop as soon as the iPhone pings the AirTag. So, the person looking for a the Tag after it is reported needs to realize that the tag could be up to 300 feet away from the reported spot.

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I notice location shift of an AirTag reported position after being Crowd-Sourced located.

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