Third-Party Gadgets Bring Find My Tracking to Wallets, Chargers, and More

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Originally published at: Third-Party Gadgets Bring Find My Tracking to Wallets, Chargers, and More - TidBITS

Thanks to the AirTag (see “Apple’s AirTag Promises to Help You Find Your Keys,” 20 April 2021), those of us who tend to leave our car keys in random locations no longer have to ransack the house to find them. Now their whereabouts are instantly revealed courtesy of an AirTag on a keychain. You can even see the AirTag on a map, if you leave it at the park or in a taxi, thanks to the Find My network that leverages more than a billion in-use Apple devices to relay an AirTag’s location wherever in the world it might be.

But why hasn’t Apple built Find My capability into a range of accessories, such as a card that slips into a wallet—where the bulbous AirTag wouldn’t fit well—or a Find My-enabled version of its magnetically adhering MagSafe Wallet?

Apple passed up an opportunity to introduce a new accessory last month when it unveiled the second-generation AirTag (see “New AirTag Offers Expanded Range, Louder Speaker,” 26 January 2026). While the new AirTag provides incremental improvements, it retains the original, slightly awkward shape. Pricing remains unchanged at $29 for one or $99 for a four-pack. But where’s the Find My luggage lock? The Find My-enabled charger? A Find My keychain in a different form factor?

It turns out all of these gadgets are available from third-party manufacturers. This is another familiar pattern. Apple unveils a new technology, such as MagSafe, and makes a variety of accessories to build excitement. But over time, it withdraws from the field (goodbye, MagSafe Duo; see “Seven Third-Party Accessories Show MagSafe’s Potential,” 4 June 2021), leaving it to third-party makers to hoist their own banners.

So it has been with Find My devices.

Nomad’s Leather Mag Wallet

In 2021, Apple released an updated version of its MagSafe Wallet. Originally inert, Apple advertised the updated wallet as having Find My support, but that was true in only the most minimal sense: “The MagSafe Wallet now supports Find My, so you can be notified of your wallet’s last known location if it gets separated from your phone.” Translation: “The wallet lacks the Bluetooth or UWB hardware of an AirTag and instead relies on the iPhone to record the wallet’s location the moment it is detached.” The MagSafe Wallet retained that minimal Find My capability in 2023, when it evolved into the iPhone FineWoven Wallet (see “Five Unexpected Announcements from Apple’s Wonderlust Event,” 12 September 2023). But Apple made no Find My improvements, so it still couldn’t be tracked in real time.

Enter Nomad’s Leather Mag Wallet. This $85 MagSafe wallet is all but indistinguishable from Apple’s original leather model, but it incorporates full Find My tracking. Leave it on the bus by mistake—in town or in Timbuktu—and you can track its whereabouts on your iPhone until you’re happily reunited.

Nomad Leather Mag Wallet

Pairing the Leather Mag Wallet with an iPhone is simple. Find the small circle etched into the back/bottom of the wallet. In the iPhone’s Find My app, tap Items > + > Other Item. Then, press and hold the circular button on the wallet until you hear a beep. That’s your cue to pair the phone and wallet; you’ll be prompted to name the wallet and assign it an emoji.

From then on, tapping Play Sound in the Find My app will make the wallet beep so you can find it wherever you left it. If it’s too far away to be heard, look for it on the map in the Find My app.

Charging is easy, too. Just place the wallet on a MagSafe or Qi charger. The wallet’s built-in battery lasts for 5 months before needing a recharge.

Wallet-Friendly Trackers

Credit card-shaped Find My trackers that slip into wallet slots make so much sense that it’s a wonder Apple hasn’t released its own version. Instead, an avalanche of companies have tried their hands at solving this tech problem, with varying degrees of success.

Nomad and KeySmart have finally nailed this niche. Their products are about the thickness of a couple of credit cards, are easy to pair, and avoid the mistakes other vendors have committed, such as using oddball proprietary charging cords that are easy to lose.

Nomad’s Tracking Card pairs using the same approach as the Leather Mag Wallet—squeeze a tiny button to pair the gadget with the iPhone’s Find My app. I’ve had the Tracking Card in my wallet for months, alongside all my credit and ID cards, and it has revealed where I absentmindedly left my wallet on multiple occasions.

Nomad Tracking Card

The company recently began offering two price tiers: the Tracking Card Air with a 5-month battery life for $29, and the Tracking Card Pro with 16 months of battery life for $39. The Air is roughly equivalent to two credit cards at 1.7 mm thick and 12 grams, whereas the beefier Pro is 2.5 mm thick and weighs 15 grams—about the same as three credit cards. Recharge them on any MagSafe or Qi charging pad.

KeySmart’s SmartCard (Gen 3) works just like Nomad’s, but sells a bit differently. A single card costs $39.99, but you can buy a three-pack for $119.97 and a five-pack for $199.95. The battery holds a charge for 11 months before it needs a session on a MagSafe or Qi pad.

KeySmart SmartCard

The SmartCard (Gen 3) boasts an Atlas Gen 3 chipset that, the maker claims, delivers 50% faster signal processing, resulting in 30% more connectivity. (The previous SmartCard (Gen 2) remains available for slightly less money, as does the SmartCard Gen 2 Lite that must be disposed of after its battery dies in 2 years. Stick with the latest model.)

Another advantage of the SmartCard is its dual-network nature. This means you can set it up with either Apple’s Find My ecosystem or Google’s Find My Device network—the Android equivalent. This capability is potentially useful for multi-platform households that want to buy a three- or five-pack, but you have to choose which network to support at setup; on-the-fly network switching isn’t available. And once set up for Find My, for instance, it can’t be located by Android devices. Regardless, like all Find My devices, it participates in unwanted tracking notifications.

Find My Charger, Keychain, and Lock

Beyond the obvious addition of Find My capabilities to wallets, third-party manufacturers have come up with other innovative places where tracking technology would be welcome.

Twelve South has built Find My into its PlugBug with Find My mobile charger, which makes sense since it’s all too easy to forget to unplug a charger in an airport or hotel room. Since you probably know where you left it plugged in, the big win of Find My support in the PlugBug is being alerted when you walk away. It would be nice if those alerts arrived more quickly.

You can choose from four versions of the PlugBug, all of which share a shiny, red-and-white design that makes them more visible than your average Apple charger. The US models feature retracting wall prongs and either two USB-C ports (50W, for $59.99) or four USB-C ports (120W for $99.99). Travel-focused models come with interchangeable wall prongs for other countries’ outlets—they’re also available in 50W ($79.99) and 120W ($129.99) versions.

PlugBug with Find My

The GaN-powered PlugBug can charge everything from an Apple Watch to a MacBook Pro, though you’ll want the 120W version for the more power-hungry MacBook Pro models.

Activating the PlugBug involves opening the rear battery door and yanking the tab behind the user-replaceable CR2032 lithium coin cell. Then press the nearby button as instructed to pair the PlugBug with your phone.

KeySmart makes a series of ingenious key organizers that mimic Swiss Army knives, with each key you add turning into a faux blade that rotates out. Several of them can hold an AirTag, but the $49.99 KeySmart iPro integrates Find My directly and can hold up to 14 keys. Use a ballpoint pen or Phillips-head screwdriver tip to initiate Find My pairing. The iPro charges via a standard USB-C cord, with 30 days of battery life between top-ups.

KeySmart iPro

KeySmart didn’t stop there. Its SmartLock Tracking Device is a standard-issue, TSA-approved luggage lock. Three metal rollers lock with a user-specified numeric combination, but the smarts come from its Find My compatibility. At $29.99, it’s essentially the same price as an AirTag and ensures that no one can rummage through your suitcase. You can even make it play a sound to help find it on an airport conveyor belt. It features a large button for initiating pairing, along with a user-swappable CR1632 battery that provides roughly 4 months of use.

KeySmart SmartLock

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In addition to Nomad, Bullstrap makes a series of wallets that include Find My trackable devices, also which charge via Qi or MagSafe charging.

I have the leather nav card holder, which I use as my travel wallet. I’ve also tried the NavSafe wallet which can attach to an iPhone using MagSafe, but I returned it because the wallet’s magnet wasn’t strong enough for my taste - the stock Apple MagSafe wallet is far more secure.

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Thanks for the heads-up.

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I don’t see the point of a Magsafe/Airtag device that attaches to an iPhone. Why wouldn’t the user use FindMy to locate the iPhone directly?

The credit-card size Airtag could be useful for, say, popping into a glasses case. Better still, one that is so small that it can be clipped onto the glasses.

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I have had the same thought, but I went with a trackable MagSafe wallet, because mine isn’t always attached to the phone, and the times it isn’t are when it is most likely to go awol.

Also it is a backup if the phone battery goes flat or is turned off. Wallet battery life is weeks/months compared to iPhone’s hours.

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There is one key difference between third party devices and AirTags. Third party devices do not support the “Precision Finding” feature that AirTags have. If that is an important factor, you may have to go with an AirTag holding version instead of the third party Find My compatible device.

I replaced my AirTag wallet with a Find My compatible one, and it’s been mostly OK since it is loud enough to find through auditory means. There have also been a few times where the third party wallet doesn’t respond to the “Play Audio” command. But, I’ve also never been great at echolocation, so I still prefer precision finding for things that are much easier lost under other items, like keys.

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Another interesting one is Satechi’s glasses case: Vegan-Leather FindAll™ Glasses Case | Satechi - Apple and PC Accessories as something that’s easily the type of thing to be forgotten and left behind.

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For folks with bicycles, Knog makes the Scout Bike Alarm & Finder which is compatible with Find My. Currently only available for iOS though they have been saying for a while that they have an Android version coming soon. They also have a luggage alarm tag that is also compatible.

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Great point Peter, I discovered this the hard way after I lost keys that had an inexpensive (under $10) third party device, in Find My instead of the “Find” icon it has the “Directions” icon which is OK for large things like backpacks that once you get to a the location are fairly obvious but keys are often less than obvious. After a little research discovered that Apple will not license the UWB (Ultra Wide Band) technology that is the key to “Precision Finding”. This means that only the Apple AirTag supports this important feature.

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My Rogue front pocket wallet has RFID blocking built into it so I’m guessing these Find My wallets DON’T block RFID? If so, they aren’t very secure.

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This settles the Q on 3rd party card style trackers. Without the Apple geolocation feature that they don’t license it is of slim use (pun intended). I have one and always hope to hear it when searching under piles of stuff.

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Do any (or all) of the wallet or card trackers work with RFID shielded wallets?

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The Bullstrap wallet I linked above is RFID-blocking. I don’t care about that myself, but it does have the feature.

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I am not too worried about the sound my 3rd party tags can make, or the lack of precision, since I mostly use them to get the location of a device on a map. What’s missing from my point of view is the lack of continuous updating. For example, if I want to know exactly where my car is (when it’s being driven by someone else and I’m at home), I may be told where it was, as much as five minutes ago, but not its location in real time. As far as I know, there is no way to jog the elbow of the FindMy app, so to speak, to make it report instantly. I guess one might have to use a paid-for service for this, which is sad. Do AirTags 2 perform any better?

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AirTags cannot phone home on their own, they only broadcast their ID. And that has not changed with AirTags 2. When you’re not getting frequent enough updates, it’s because there are too few  devices in the vicinity of your AirTag (or at least too few that know where they are and can phone home).

If you need (near) real-time updates regardless of the item’s surroundings and surrounding  devices, you need a tracker that can actively report its location to a server (and then you are still subject to issues resulting from cellular connectivity, GPS snr, etc.). Those are much more costly and usually do not give you the type of year-long lifetime on a single charge. That is a trade-off and with AirTags Apple has clearly chosen to stick to one side of that equation. They do that highly successfully, but there is no doubt a trade-off.

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According to Wikipedia different RFID standards use different frequencies:

  • LF: 120-150 kHz (10 cm range)
  • HF: 13.56 MHz (0.1-1m range)
  • UHF: 433 MHz (1-100m range)
  • UHF: 865-868 MHz (1-12m)
  • UHF: 920-928 MHz (1-12m)
  • Microwave: 2.45-5.8 GHz (1-2m)
  • Microwave: 3.1-10 GHz (up to 200m)
  • MM-wave: 24.125 GHz (10-200m)

Bluetooth (used by all these trackers) is at 2.4 GHz - right next to one of the Microwave bands.

But it’s unlikely you’ll be keeping devices with these frequencies in your wallet. Many are used by things like automotive key fobs, electronic toll collection (e.g., E-ZPass) and other devices too big to fit in a wallet.

According to this site, RFID access cards (e.g., for door locks) use these three bands:

  • LF: 125 kHz (the most common)
  • HF: 13.56 MHz (the most secure, I assume because of the shortest range)
  • UHF: 900 MHz (the longest range)

According to Wikipedia, contactless credit cards use NFC (not RFID) at 13.56 MHz (the HF band).

A wallet that only blocks the frequencies used by card-type devices should be able to pass Bluetooth signals like those from a FindMy device without a problem. One that blocks microwave RFID frequencies around 2.4 GHz (not used by credit cards) will block such devices.

How can you find out what frequencies a given wallet will block? I have no clue. I’ve never seen this documented on product description pages. And I think it’s safe to assume that different brands will block different frequencies.

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So the Qinux GoTag’s claim to “Locate Any Object Or Vehicle In Real-Time, No Matter Where You Are.” is false? I found this item on a “Best Buy” site but without proper identification of the manufacturer etc so maybe it’s a scam anyway.

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It looks like a scam to me. I went and searched for that item. It is only listed on a bestbuyersguide.org site, which immediately pops up “limited time offer” boxes. The page says that it is only sold through the official web site, but when you click through, the purchase site is part of the same domain.

If you click on one of the other product “listings”, like the Apple AirTag, you end up at an Amazon search results page for “mini tracker”.

If you order one of these, I wouldn’t expect you to receive anything at all. Or if you do, it may be an inert hunk of plastic. And you can guarantee that if you try to call customer support, nobody will ever answer the phone.

While there are trackers with cellular radios and GPS, which can track objects that are far away from other human beings, I think you can be sure that this isn’t one of them.

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I came here to ask about bicycles as I just got myself a new Marin DSX1 and am looking at the devices some outfits make to discreetly attach and airtag to a bicycle. Thanks for this, and any other advice welcome. I was thinking under the saddle, but the bike shop guy said some people let down a tire and insert the tag between the tire and the tube. Apparently the tag copes well. Hmmm.

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Bike nerdy stuff: I’d be concerned about impact on rolling resistance of tracker in the tire. And if you change a flat you risk losing it. Just saying.