Ask HN: Is Apple Find My a Joke?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33720480

by idontwantthis • 4 years ago

13 21 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I own a handful of Apple products and I have find my enabled for all of them.

It has never once reminded me when I’ve left my AirPod 3s behind, but has multiple times alerted me when they were in my pocket. The one time I thought I lost them, they hadn’t checked in for hours (while in my pocket) and it couldn’t tell me that they were actually in the same room as me.

Does Find My work for other people?

I am not in the US so maybe there’s some problem with it in this country.

PaulHoule• 4 years ago

I didn't know where my iPad was this morning. I'm not so sure if Find My would accomplish much because I only have 1 mac from 2013 in the house but I called my Skype and heard the ring.

veidr3• 4 years ago

therefore... what?

CobaltFire• 4 years ago

I've used it to track my child at Tokyo Disneyland via an AirTag, I've been notified when I left one of my headphones behind within about 100 meters, and I've used it within the house to find a phone that (somehow) had slipped behind the couch.

It's been a nice feature for us.

matthewdgreen• 4 years ago

The AirPods seem to stop broadcasting their location very quickly, perhaps as a power-saving measure. It's unfortunate because it makes the Find My feature basically useless. I went ahead and attached a Tile tracker to my AirPod Pros because the feature was so unreliable.

It tends to work very well for AirTags and Apple devices that have actual connectivity (until their battery dies.)

Tagbert• 4 years ago

Prior to the AirPods Pro 2 released this fall, none of the AirPods devices or cases had hardware support for location. The best they can do is a very low resolution location of the actual pods using Bluetooth. When in the case, all it knows is where it was when you put the pods in the case. I had turned off that feature for my older AirPods as it was not useful.

If you had AirPods Pro 2, it can locate the device as long as there is an iPhone or similar device in the vicinity to relay the signal. This is handled by the U1 chip in the APP2 and in the iPhone. the location can be identified quite closely in this case.

Find My works well for devices that have a U1 chip or GPS like phones, iPads, and Macs.

saberience• 4 years ago

Not a joke for me, I've found my Airpods Pro 2 in a supermarket, found my parents iPhones multiple times, and found my Apple Watch several times using these features. It's a game changer in my experience.

avgDev• 4 years ago

I'm in the US and have an airtag on my keys. Life changer for a forgetful person and works well for me.

foundatron• 4 years ago

Works on my machine.

veidr3• 4 years ago

Seems to work for me in Japan, although the "u left ur ipad behind broooo!!!!!" feature is not useful (100s of notifications; never actually left unintentionally).

AirPods specifically: annoying alerts in airports, like 20 minutes after going through security (this is in USA, so that means doing the security theater boogie). That made me think AirPods had a severe latency that made the alerting even less useful than usual.

Also I lost a set of AirPods Pro (original generation) and I am 90% sure it was because they fell out of a pocket -- but no alert.

veidr3• 4 years ago

Oh I should add that I track my family members with it, and it is fucking superb. Like when my wife (iPhone) is coming home by taxi, or my kid (hand-me-down Apple Watch) is coming home by subway, it's almost like one of those fake Hollywood movies where the CIA is tracking people by satellite.

filoleg• 4 years ago

Kinda similar, but me and my friends do the same. Some have it always enabled, others enable it only for periods when they are free to hang out.

Makes it easy to figure out where to head next with a group of people ("ok, so person A is here, person B is in that other nearby area, and person C is a bit north right now, so let's all meet up at location Y"), as well as actually meeting them at a specific spot.

Note: this scenario only makes sense if you are in a fairly dense area without a ton of driving involved. This approacg worked splendidly for me and my friends in NYC, but much less so in other US cities.

dpkirchner• 4 years ago

Have you tried setting location exceptions for your iPad? It works well for me. I use it to avoid notifications when I leave my laptop bag at home (rarely a real problem).

alexfromapex• 4 years ago

I've had like 40 not useful and 1 useful one. I'd rather it remind me about my macbook and not my ipad.

crazygringo• 4 years ago

Works great for me.

I suspect it might be an issue with your specific pair of AirPods, which sucks. Sorry.

Don't know if it's something you could get them exchanged over at the Apple Store.

Might also be radio interference, something to do with your room or even your clothing.

aix1• 4 years ago

To help future readers, would you mind rephrasing the title for clarity? I found it quite impenetrable.

Perhaps "...Apple's Find My app..." would make it clearer what the post is about.

And, while you're at it, also the body of the message ("I have find my enabled...")

Thanks!

runjake• 4 years ago

It works here fine (~99.99%) for me.

It works with my AirPods (x2), iPad Air M1, MagSafe Wallet, AirTags, and so on.

lovich• 4 years ago

Works well enough that I bought air tags to track a number of my important items. My only problem with it is an edge case pertinent to me in that I live in a shared building that’s large enough that it can occasionally warn me that I’ve left an item if the item and myself are on opposite sides of the house

themadturk• 4 years ago

Yes, it works for me, most of the time. It tells me when I have left things behind, when I have left them somewhere other than home. Sometimes it tells me I have left behind things that are with me, in which case I've just laughed at it and gone on with my day.

I have used it several times to try to find things I have lost (around the house, that is)...phone and Airpods, specifically. It has been successful with the phone. The Airpods...well, they were chirping as requested, but they were also in the pocket of a pair of trousers that had just gone through the wash, so I didn't hear them right away, and they wouldn't. stop. chirping after I did. Thank heavens for AppleCare (and the fact that, even after going through a wash cycle, worked well enough to identify themselves).

nexus7556• 4 years ago

Works fine for me. I’ve had great success with it in Switzerland, Italy, Thailand, California.

fraXis• 4 years ago

I have the same issues with Find My.

I will have my AirPods Pro 2 in my pocket and just left work, and Find My is notifying me that I left them behind. This happens every day.

Then one time I purposely left them behind at work while I went home, and Find My DID NOT notify me that I had left them behind.

So there is some bug or glitch in the way that tracking system works.

Edit: I am in the USA

dagmx• 4 years ago

Try restarting your phone. My partners device had some kind of bug where it wasn’t communicating with Find My properly so it would keep alerting them for their items not being with them (my phone being near was enough for the items to relay their info)

That kind of sounds like what you’re facing. Your phone isn’t communicating with Find My so your AirPods in your pocket are seen as missing, but when they’re left at home it’s likely marked as a trusted location or it’s near your other Apple products that are marking it as safe.

Ask HN: Is Apple Find My a Joke?

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