I have four items that I could track with the new Apple AirTag.
- Davinci Resolve Studio license dongle
- Manfrotto mini tripod with smartphone adapter
- Zhiyun Smooth-X Gimbal Stabilizer
- Brother P-Touch label maker.
I haven’t misplaced the license dongle. The tripod and gimbal, either together or separately, often disappear for a week or two after I use them. As for the label maker, it went missing for four months in my home office. Only one of these items will let me put the AirTag inside.
WHY THE LABEL MAKER?
The label maker was a $10 USD Black Friday special that I got at OfficeMax over ten years ago. That was a great deal for a $30 USD label maker back then. I use the label maker to label bins for electronic parts, clear boxes for PC parts, and other items in my home office.
For the new year, I wanted to sort, toss and re-label all my stuff to get better organized. And then the label maker disappeared for four months. I recently found the label maker behind a shelf where I didn’t expect it to be. If only I had some way to find the label maker whenever it disappears.
That’s where the Apple AirTag comes in.
TWO PROBLEMS WITH AIRTAG
When I got the AirTag, I ran into two problems.
Apple packaging the Mac and iPhones has always been fun and easy to open. But not the AirTag box. I had to rip open the top of the box. That’s understandable from a retail perspective. If the box were too easy to open, someone could pocket all the AirTags and walk out of the Apple Store.
I read that the AirTag was slightly larger than a quarter. The perfect size to fit inside my label maker. Not quite. The silver disc of the AirTag was slightly larger than a quarter. The white ring surrounding the silver disc made the AirTag larger. That almost made it too big to go inside the label maker.
After activating the AirTag, I named it “Label Maker” and assigned the label emoji.
INSTALLING THE AIRTAG
The AirTag went into an empty space on the bottom panel of the label maker. A pair of double-sided silicon glue dots hold the AirTag in place. The silver disc facing down and the white ring tilting at an angle.
Since I have an older iPhone XR, I use Bluetooth to have the AirTag make a sound. That’s good enough for me. If I had an iPhone 11 or 12, I could use Precession Finding to track the AirTag instead. A feature I won’t be using until I trade-in my iPhone XR in 2023.
As someone pointed out on Twitter, I could have gotten a new label maker for the same price as the AirTag. If I bought a new label maker, the old one would reappear. I don’t need two label makers. I have enough clutter in my home office as it is.