The best Bluetooth trackers for 2024

Since I started testing Bluetooth trackers, they’ve helped me find my keys buried in couch cushions, stopped me from leaving my wallet in a friend’s car and made sure I didn’t forget my bike lock key as I took off on a ride. Through their respective apps, these useful gadgets let you ring your items when they’re nearby and they’ll send you an alert when you’ve strayed too far from them. Larger finding networks rely on signals from other phones to help you locate trackers lost in the community. We’ve tested tags from the most popular brands so you can determine which Bluetooth tracker is best for you.

What to look for in a Bluetooth tracking device

Bluetooth trackers are small discs or cards that rely on short-range, low-energy wireless signals to communicate with your smartphone. Attach one to your stuff and, if it’s in range, your phone can “ring” the chip so you can find it. These tracking devices offer other features like separation alerts to tell you when you’ve left a tagged item behind, or where a lost item was last detected. Some can even tap into a larger network of smartphones to track down your device when you’re out of range. Depending on what you want the tracker to do, there are a few specs to look for when deciding which to get.

Device compatibility

Like most things from the folks in Cupertino, AirTags only work with products in the Apple ecosystem. The company has opened up access to its Find My network to third-party manufacturers, including Chipolo, though. Its One Spot and Card Spot finders work with Apple's large tracking network, but only pair with Apple devices. Chipolo’s classic trackers will work with either Android or Apple devices, as will Tile trackers.

Finding network

Crowd-sourced finding capabilities are what make headlines, with stories about recovering stolen equipment or tracking lost luggage across the globe. Using anonymous signals that ping other people’s devices, these Bluetooth tracking devices can potentially tell you where a tagged item is, even if your smartphone is out of Bluetooth range. Apple’s Find My network is by far the largest, with over a billion iPhones in service all running Apple’s Find My app by default. So unless an iPhone user opts out, their phone silently acts as a location detector for any nearby AirTags.

Android phones outnumber iPhones globally, but there isn’t a unified network tying together every Android user. Samsung’s relatively new SmartTag 2 shares similarities with Apple in that every Samsung phone defaults to an opt-in status for finding tags and other devices. But, in the US at least, iPhones still outnumber Galaxy phones.

During last year’s I/O conference, Google announced forthcoming upgrades to its Find My Device network, starting with better anti-stalking measures, some of which it debuted last July. The complete roll out of the Find My-rivaling network has been delayed, with no new announcements on exactly when it will be available. We know of a few trackers that will take advantage of the new system and once they’re available, we’ll test them out and update this guide.

In the meantime, Tile offers a large finding grid, with every smartphone that runs the Tile app acting as incognito locators. After Life360 acquired Tile, the 47 million users of that app were added to the 50 million existing Tile users, creating a sizable network.

In our tests, AirTags offered nearly real-time location data and were quickest to find items abandoned in spots around Albuquerque, including a bar, bookstore and coffee shop in Nob Hill, along with various outdoor hangouts on UNM’s campus. Tile trackers and Samsung's SmartTags were able to locate our lost items most of the time, though not with the same pin-point accuracy as AirTags. Chipolo’s Spot trackers operate on the same Find My network and perform on par with the AirTags.

Chipolo’s classic trackers, on the other hand, don’t have much of a crowd-sourced network to speak of. Yet as we used the trackers, the size of the finding network started to feel less important in the face of typical, everyday use cases. It was their ability to out-perform in every other way that boosted Chipolo’s classic trackers to the top of our list.

Separation alerts

Here’s where a tracker’s day-to-day utility really shines. A separation alert lets you know when you’ve traveled too far from your tagged items, which is useful if you want to make sure your laptop bag, or jacket or umbrella always comes with you when you leave the house.

These notifications work when you’re out and about too. If you’ve got a Bluetooth tracking device in your wallet and walk out of a restaurant without it, the separation alert should kick in, resulting in fewer lost items. This feature also tells you where your tagged item and phone were last paired, allowing you to retrace your steps if you happen to miss the alert.

Each tracker handles left-behind items differently. Both AirTags and Chipolo include the feature by default. Tile trackers require a yearly subscription to enable the alerts (currently $30 per year). Both AirTags and Tiles allow you to turn off separation alerts at certain locations, meaning you can set your home as a “safe” place where items can be left behind, but alerts will still trigger elsewhere. Chipolo doesn’t offer safe locations, but you can toggle out-of-range alerts on a per-item basis.

In our tests, the Chipolo sent an alert after we got between 250 and 450 feet away from our tagged item. AirTags alerted us between the 600- and 1,400-foot mark. And Tiles sent a notification after about an average of 1,500 feet. Tile notifications were not consistent on an iPhone, but worked well when operating with an Android phone.

Connectivity, volume and design

The feature you may use most often is the key finder function, which makes the tracker ring when you hit a button in the app. Tile and Chipolo classic trackers will also let you double click the device itself to make your phone ring, but AirTags and Chipolos running on the Find My app don’t offer this feature.

The volume of the Bluetooth tracking device may determine whether you can find an item buried in your couch cushions or in a noisy room. AirTags have a reputation for being on the quiet side, and that aligned with what we saw (measuring roughly 65 decibels). Chipolo’s keychain-style tags, both the Apple-only version and the device-agnostic version, and the Tile Slim wallet tracker were the loudest, measuring between 83 and 85 decibels.

Design will determine what you can attach the tracker to. AirTags are small, smooth discs that can’t be secured to anything without accessories, which are numerous, but that is an additional cost to consider. Both Chipolo and Tile offer trackers with holes that easily attach to your key ring, and both companies also offer card-shaped versions designed to fit in your wallet. Tile also makes Tile Stickers, which are even smaller trackers that adhere to things like your TV’s remote.

Batteries are replaceable for AirTags, Tile Pro and Chipolo One; the first two have a one-year battery life and the Chipolo can go up to two years. Tile Mate and all card-shaped trackers don’t have replaceable batteries, which means you’ll have to replace the entire unit whenever it dies. Pebblebee trackers are rechargeable and come in both a key fob and wallet variety.

Stalking and stealing

AirTags have recently gotten a lot of attention for bad actors planting them on people in order to stalk them. While this fact may not influence your buying decision, any discussion of Bluetooth trackers should note what steps Apple, Google and Tile have taken to address the issue. If an AirTag is detected moving with you and apart from its owner, the device will ring to alert you of its presence. Whether you have an iPhone or an Android phone, as long as you have location services and Bluetooth turned on, you’ll automatically get an alert with no further steps required. Tile offers a similar feature through its standard app, and it doesn’t require a Tile account to search for suspicious nearby trackers.

Recently, Tile launched a feature called Anti-Theft Mode, which enables you to render one of its trackers undetectable by others. That means if someone steals your tagged item, they won’t be able to use the anti-stalking features to find its precise location and disable the tracker. Of course, that potentially makes a Tile easier to use as a stalking device, so in order to enable the feature, you have to verify your ID and agree to a $1 million penalty for misuse.

In general, a Bluetooth tracker may or may not be the best option for combating theft. Anecdotal stories abound in which people have recovered stolen goods using a tracker — but other tales are more cautionary. Apple still doesn’t promote its trackers or finding networks as a way to deal with theft. GPS trackers, on the other hand, are typically marketed for just that purpose.

How we tested

Before deciding on which trackers to test, we researched the field, looking at user reviews on Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers, along with discussions on sites like Reddit. We also checked out what other publications had to say on the matter before narrowing down our picks to Apple AirTag, Tile and Chipolo trackers. When Samsung's SmartTag 2 came out in October of 2023, we added that to our testing, along with Pebblebee's rechargeable Chip tracker.