AirTag vs Find My tag: the honest side-by-side

AirTag vs Find My tag, row by row

Read the middle of that table before the ends. Every row about finding things over distance is identical, because both products are doing the same thing through the same infrastructure. That is what certification means, and it is why this comparison is not the David-and-Goliath story it looks like.

The row that genuinely favours AirTag

Precision Finding. Apple's Ultra Wideband chip gives an on-screen arrow, a distance and a haptic nudge over the last stretch, and the second-generation tag launched in January 2026 starts that guidance from up to 50 per cent farther away than before. No third-party tag has it, because Apple has not opened UWB to the accessory programme.

If your losses are outdoors, in large or noisy spaces where an alarm gets swallowed, a festival field, a campsite, a busy carousel, buy Apple's. That is the scenario the arrow was designed for and it does the job well.

The rows that favour a third-party tag

Attachment. Apple's tag is a smooth disc with no hole in it, so a case is effectively compulsory and costs extra. A shell with the ring moulded in and two rings in the box is not a clever engineering feat; it is a decision to include the obvious thing.

Published numbers. Up to 60 m and 80–100 dB are figures you can hold a product to. Comparative claims like "50 per cent louder" are harder to plan around.

Cost per item, which is the row that actually decides it.

The arithmetic for a household

List the things you have genuinely lost in the last two years. For most people it runs to five or six: keys, work bag, suitcase, laptop sleeve, camera or tool bag, spare car fob.

At Apple's UK pricing, six tags is two four-packs, a serious outlay for six pieces of plastic. Almost nobody does it. They buy one, put it on their keys, and then lose the suitcase.

Boxes of two at under £15 a box change the shape of the decision entirely. Three boxes covers all six items for a fraction of the same coverage in Apple hardware, and the multi-box discount at checkout takes more off again. The tag on the item you lose is worth more than the better tag on the item you did not.

Which should you actually buy

Buy AirTag if you own an iPhone 11 or later, you lose things outdoors, and you are tagging one or two high-value items where the last-few-metres arrow is worth the premium.

Buy a certified third-party tag if your losses are indoors or in vehicles, you want more than two things covered, and you would rather have a tag on everything than the newest radio on one thing.

Buy neither if the person you are shopping for uses an Android phone. Nothing in this comparison applies to them, and no Find My tag will ever pair with their handset.

How Orbit Tag helps

Everything claimed for Orbit Tag in that table follows from MFi certification rather than from anything we built. It registers in Find My as an Other Item from iOS 14.5 onward, with no companion application, account or subscription, and from then on relies on Apple's network, Apple's encryption and Apple's safety features. The whereabouts of your things stay readable by your Apple Account alone; this shop cannot see them.

What we did decide is the physical side: a 36.3 mm square case, 9 mm deep and about 10 g, with a moulded ring hole and a pair of rings included, sealed to IP67, an alarm of 80 to 100 dB answerable as far as 60 m, and a CR2032 rated at about two years that you change yourself. Two trackers per box, delivery free within the UK, thirty days to send it back.

And the honest column: no Ultra Wideband, no Precision Finding, no Android, the same three lines you will find on the FAQ.

Under £15 a box, and the multi-box rate takes more off again: see the tracker, the specification and the pricing.

More detail: what Precision Finding is worth in practice and what the second-generation AirTag changed.