Tracking my stuff with the Moto Tags

I generally do not lose stuff. I try to be conscious of what I carry with me and keep track of where I loan or leave my equipment, gear, and gadgets. But I'm also fascinated with helpful tech, so I've had Tile trackers for a few years now.

The problem with Tile

The Tile trackers were initially pretty good. Small tiles that you can put on your keychain, allowing you to call up their location from a mobile app. Perfect! Except, it was ridden with issues.

Far too often, the app would indicate that the battery was low or empty on a given tile. But I just replaced the battery last month. It's a CR2032, thus the 'regular' battery. So I dutifully bought a family pack of new batteries and replaced them on all of my eight tiles. However, that didn't help - you have to manually configure each Tile and click 'I've replaced my battery' for the ecosystem to recognize that you indeed have battery life left.

This wasn't very easy, and since I had tiles I didn't use often, like the one in my car, I could never trust it would work when I needed it to.

However, the Tiles were the only ones available for Android, so I continued.

Hello, Moto Tags

Then, I discovered the Motorola Moto Tags.

Physically, they are the size of Apple AirTags, which means all Apple accessories are compatible.

The Moto Tags work with the Android Find My network. This means, as I'm invested in the Android ecosystem, that I should be able to locate my tags even if there are iPhone users nearby.

Each tag costs approximately 40 €, including relevant local taxes.
The Belkin case holder is made of inexpensive plastic but is sturdy enough—and it's surprisingly priced at € 20. However, I found a discount for four Belkin cases for 40 €.

The tags utilize the same CR2032 regular battery, and adoption is seamless. You pull out the plastic tab, and on the first adoption, my phone upgraded to the Google Find Hub app. Adopting tags from there takes just about 15 seconds. You can then rename the tags, and even the colors are depicted in the app (starlight blue and sage green).

The Moto Tags technically support UWB, or Ultra Wideband, for more precise tracking, once you're near the tag. This appears to be something Google is rolling out around this time, so currently, at least in Finland, UWB isn't enabled for Find Hub.

Moto Tags in Practice:

To track your tags, use the Find Hub app on your mobile device.

It's pretty barebones, but then there aren't many things you need. Refreshing location takes a few seconds, usually. In remote areas, it will attempt to triangulate your location based on the "Find Hub network", which I assume is a euphemism for Google knowing exactly where it is, but obscuring the details a bit.

The tags are IP67 rated, so they should survive in the rain, cold, and moisture of the Finnish winter.

Issues

Once I knew the tags seemed to work as advertised, I purchased a few more. There was an offer for four tags for the price of three, so I took advantage of it.

All tags work exceptionally well. I can easily track the location of our car, if I need to. I have one in my keychain, which is usually next to me, but I'm still happy I can locate it if necessary.

One of the tags is in a backpack my kids occasionally use. It's been in use for two weeks, and just this morning, Find Hub notified me that the battery on that tag is low. After just two weeks? I'm not sure what's going on, so I replaced the battery and was happy to see that Find Hub immediately picked up the status and shows full battery now. I'll monitor how this evolves.

I wish UWB support were already enabled. Not because I need it for real, but it would be fun to finally use UWB on my phone, for something at least.

In closing

So far, I'm pretty happy with the tags. They seem reliable (except for the one issue with low battery), they're built sturdy, and tracking seems to work exceptionally well.

One of my kids is traveling right now, and he has a tag with him. Anytime I update the location, it refreshes in just 2 seconds and seems very precise. I suppose Apple users have had this capability for a long time, but for us Android users, it hasn't been available quite yet.