Affordable tracking - My van powers my AirTag

Is this something you would use in your vehicle?
Found the video helpful? Help fuel my caffeine addiction! buymeacoffee.c...
I haven't completed a horn hook-up as I'm concerned about "false alarms"
(The AirTag will sound after being away from the owner and the internal accelerometer senses movement)
What are your thoughts on this?
Using the links below helps support the channel by earning me a small commission. Thank you!
Apple AirTag: amzn.to/3kBZg4f
Voltage regulator: amzn.to/3DdNgx3
Battery holder: amzn.to/3kUe26P
1 amp diode: amzn.to/3ndQew2
Inline fuse: amzn.to/3HvdGgD
Wire assortment: amzn.to/3HkszlB
3M foam tape: amzn.to/3FtIYCL
3M electrical tape: amzn.to/3HnxsKW

[@watdeneuk1]

Almost blinded myself when soldering such a battery and it exploded. Dangerous stuff!

[@Laborkei]

I just purchased the 4pk of Apple Tags. Then I said, surly someone must have made a device where you snap your Tag into it, and then connect it to 12 Volts. My plan is to install hidden on my Motorcycles. Well, no luck... Then I came across your video in my searches. Very cool what you did. I think I will just change the batteries for now until someone sort of does what you did on a commercial version. I like the Horn part. That is Cool !

[@Joe4USMC]

Cool idea! I'm thinking about doing something similar but different ... replacing the CR2032 battery with a CR123A battery that has about 6.5x the capacity. That should theoretically get a solid 6 years of service out of it.

[@vladimir0rus]

Even if you disable a speaker it is still possible to locate AirTag using precise finding (available on iPhone11 and later). Actually it is possible to create an AirTag clone tracker which will be not detectable by phones automatically (iPhone will not notify you). So it there are significant demand it is possible to start manufacturing.

[@jmnasman]

Nice hack! I would definitely go with a battery holder though to save a little frustration. 😎

[@VanwithTim]

I should just order a handful of assorted battery holders for future projects. They're affordable enough online!

[@Kurlzero]

This is absolutely epic! Setting this up on my camper trailer!

[@Hakeeeeeeem]

You are a plus to the humanity, thank you sir

[@libertyauto]

Nice info, thanks for the video. I did not even know these were a thing. grin

[@VanwithTim]

Cool affordable little gadgets! Thanks for checking it out -Tim

[@FiSHi453]

Hi do you have a video of you installing this and adding the inline fuse? Thanks for the great idea 🙏

[@r.t.5425]

That was AWESOME

[@godboat.]

so good

[@rrspille]

Thanks for this tutorial. Can you specify which kind of diode you used? I‘m planing to do this with a cheap AirTag alternative from ‚Ali‘ since I don‘t need the nearfield communication Also I ordered a cheap cr2032 holder (don’t solder a cr2032 battery!) and will put all of the stuff in a 3d printed case.

[@MidoriMonorail]

Do you think it would work if I wired an AirTag circuit board to a 3.7v 2000 mah battery? I have a project and looking for a way to be able to track my device. Thanks for any information.

[@MapleMarmite]

Nice job on this, Tim! I agree that a battery holder would be the way to go. I’ll have to look into these AirTags. I had only come across the Tile before and figured that to not be really suitable. Assuming you’ve removed the speaker, does the device constantly put out a signal that could be detected by a nearby iPhone or does that only happen when you activate it from your iPhone? And what’s the proximity/length of time that the ‘snitch factor’ cuts in at? Inside the same vehicle (i.e van thief) would be enough? Thanks for the upload! 👍🏻

[@VanwithTim]

Yeah those battery holders are super affordable too. Should have just ordered some! No need to activate anything on the AirTag, it will automatically update it's location. As for how often it updates, Apple is pretty quiet on the specifics. But from what I've gathered: There's actually an accelerometer inside that senses any physical movement. I believe it only updates every minute or so when it senses movement and there is an iPhone nearby. Otherwise if it senses the movement has ended (as sensed by the internal accelerometer) it will conserve battery life by only reporting every 10 - 30 minutes or so. As for the "Snitch Factor" (Love the term by the way), it seems to come on pretty quickly. My girlfriends keys have her AirTag attached, and when I take her car to the supermarket just five miles away, I get notified about an AirTag following me. Optimistically the thief would get the notification and decide not to take the tracked vehicle back to their residence. Pessimistically the thief would start ripping the entire interior out of the vehicle looking for the AirTag.

[@destinal_in_reality]

Your joints were probably breaking because they look like cold solder joints. Make sure you pre heat both sides and heat the components you're soldering as you touch solder to them. That big ball you were messing at 5:51 and the "painting" of solder onto the board you were doing onto the voltage regulator are bad signs.

[@VanwithTim]

Definitely right. Still unsure how to heat the battery surface enough to melt the solder without damaging the battery. My RadioShack solder iron (allegedly) heats to 850F, just not sure how to transfer the heat fast enough. As for the solder joint breaking on the AirTag, it was actually the thin wire breaking in half. (Only had this tiny solid core wire. Next size up was 14ga stranded oops)

[@destinal_in_reality]

@@VanwithTim oh ouch, I didn't realize the wire was breaking. And yeah I like the idea of the battery holders to solder to, they're pretty cheap and you can replace them a lot easier later.

[@VanwithTim]

@@destinal_in_reality They're certainly cheap enough that I should just order some to keep on hand!

[@tomerkaufmann6073]

❤❤

[@odoliveira8593]

very nice work, I have a question, is it safe for the battery to explode?

[@VanwithTim]

Thank you. The CR2032 batteries are Lithium but if the voltage of the DC regulator is kept at the same level as the battery (~3.2 - 3.3 volts) there should be no risk of fire or explosion.

[@NelsonNico]

Hi, How's this circuit holding up after making it last year? I'm in the process of copying it but thought I'd check if there's anything you'd do differently or change (yes I did get batter holders lol)

[@VanwithTim]

Hi Nelson, still showing full battery while my other AirTags have required battery replacement already. I’m calling it a success!

[@jon07crz]

Would it be better to use a LIR2032 battery? Which is a rechargeable battery instead of the regular one used

[@VanwithTim]

Honestly wasn't aware the CR2032 came in re-chargeable lithium flavors. That's really cool! Looks like the temperature range might be an issue in vehicle installations though. (Depends on where it's mounted though!)

[@jon07crz]

@@VanwithTim I didn’t even think of temp range. Yeah I didn’t know they can in rechargeable until recently when I got a gshock watch. What’s the working temp range ?

[@VanwithTim]

@@jon07crz I was wondering which applications they'd be used in but the watch makes sense. Nice that they make the battery serviceable! Temperature range for the LIR2032 looks like -20 to 60℃ / -4 to140℉

[@nicosstav42]

Hi there, I’m looking to do the exact same thing on my car, I actually had my car stolen a few weeks ago and luckily I had an AirTag hidden in there so managed to go steal my car back from the thieves four hours later, what I would like to know is how could I do the same wiring but also switch out that standard lithium battery for a rechargeable one that is topped up by the car battery?

[@VanwithTim]

Wow - thank goodness for the AirTag then! Really hope I never have to use mine but what a great thing to have. You could definitely eliminate the coin-cell CR2032 battery and wire in ANY 3v battery of your choice to the + and - leads on the circuit board. You could go with this style of battery amzn.to/3A8EL72 and just wire a 12v cigarette lighter USB charger to the battery. This would work great if your cigarette lighter socket only has power when the car is on. That way it won't drain the starting battery when sitting with the engine off. But also, the included CR2032 button cell battery is only 600-700mWh, whereas these rechargeable batteries claim 2,400mWh per battery (so 3.7x the battery life of the stock battery) Realistically you could run the airtag on one of these big rechargable batteries for 6-10 years without a recharge. If you wired all four rechargeable batteries in parallel, you could run for over 20 years without a recharge lol.

[@nicosstav42]

@@VanwithTim wow this is great advice! Thanks so much for replying! I’m seriously considering a mini project to create this solution with the above battery upgrade. I’ve got a few questions on power management though. It’s very important to make sure that the AirTag would always get a constant uninterruptible power source (AirTags will reset and unpair with your phone if power is disconnected and connected several times in succession) just wondering how the circuit would best be arranged to handle this especially with charging the batteries when the car is switched on and while also being connected to the car battery (through the voltage regulator), would having the rechargeable batteries + car power source all wired in parallel pose any risk of voltage spikes or drops when the car is turned on and off? would I need to place any diodes or transistors to block incorrect flows or direct the power given the car on off states? if you ever get a chance to revisit your tag and do this upgrade as a follow up video it would be great to watch! Very interesting and I’m sure would get a lot of views as there is hardly any good videos out there with serious AirTag mods like this and I’m pretty sure a lot of peeps would appreciate it! I hope maybe it’s something you would consider. (Stealth Tag V2) :) One other thing I found this pcb: TP4056 5V 1A Micro USB 18650 Lithium Battery Charging Board Module amzn.eu/d/37wA0s4 just wondering this might solve the above on one shot with a few tweaks to get the correct voltages etc. let me know your thoughts anyways :)

[@VanwithTim]

@@nicosstav42 I actually just went and checked the current draw of the 12vdc voltage reducer along with the attached AirTag in the van. You should be safe just hardwiring it to a constant power circuit in your vehicle without worrying about battery drain. All online sources seem to conclude that a "healthy" parasitic draw in a vehicle is between 0.05 - 0.85 amps. *The AirTag along with the powered DC to DC voltage step down converter draws less than 0.003 amps (3 milliamps)* A healthy automotive battery has around 60 amp hours of capacity, so at 0.003 amps for the circuit shown in the video, the car battery could power your AirTag for 20,000 hours, or 833 days, or 2 years and 4 months. Of course that's assuming nothing else is attached to the car battery and that you haven't started or driven the vehicle in those 2.3 years (which would immediately re-charge your car battery) Obviously the battery will self-discharge even if sitting untouched on a shelf. That makes our 2.3 year number slightly askew, but either way - attaching the circuit shown directly to the car battery would work perfectly without ever leaving your car unable to start!

[@fritzkabeano1969]

I like it. What's the android alternative?

[@VanwithTim]

Cool concept for sure. The Android alternative would be the "Tile" Bluetooth Tracker (amzn.to/3wGN86Z) The only slight downfall is where the AirTag utilizes any and all Apple products within range to relay it's location, Android will only use other Androids which have the "Tile" app installed on their phone to relay it's location. So although it won't be as wide of "coverage" (I think that's what you would call it!), it would still be way better than having nothing at all!

[@fritzkabeano1969]

@@VanwithTim Thanks Tim

[@Krasimir_BG]

Can you replace the CR battery with another re charitable battery that is ment to be charged and discharged?

[@VanwithTim]

Definitely. I would recommend it. Make sure it’s 3V of course.

[@jedics1]

I want to do the same thing for the same reasons but airtags only use bluetooth with other iphones, surely not a reliable way to track a car compared to using a macbook or macmini that uses wifi connections to triangulate location with far more range, they come with a power cord so no wiring needed either. Have you tested it "out in the field"?

[@goranspirov2274]

Why keep the Battery? First it's not safe to apply voltage to the Battery, and second, you can ditch the battery, so why bother? And although this is a Li-Ion Battery, It's not rechargeable! Pls don't burn your van 🙂

[@VanwithTim]

I figure if the voltage applied to the battery is equal to the voltage of the battery it won't charge or discharge. Somewhat equivalent to two CR2032's running in parallel except one never loses charge..? I figure thieves will cut out the van batteries first thing if it's brought to a "chop-shop". I wanted to keep the 3v battery as a backup but maybe that's not a good idea.

[@buyerenogurlfwendo2106]

@@VanwithTimI seen a diagram of a similar concept on the all about circuits forum. They had the car battery hooked to a Buck converter then a diode. Then on the other side was the CR2022 and a diode. Kinda hard to explain but if you find the post they got a diagram. The CR2022 positive side feeds into after the diode on the car battery positive side. Also because of the diode they had the buck converter doing 4.2v for some reason. “Car powered Apple AirTag” post from September 8th 2023 if you want to find it. I just made an account with Google to view the diagrams.

[@arcticredpanda4598]

Do you think an Airtag can be placed inside a portable battery phone charger?

[@VanwithTim]

It could but you would need to use extreme caution when opening anything containing lithium batteries. HUGE potential for violent fire / explosion and poison gas if touched the wrong way or wires shorted. I would have to recommend against, but as with everything - if there's a will, there's a way (even with extremely high risk)

[@arcticredpanda4598]

@@VanwithTim How much would be worth your time to make one?

[@bamador]

Would you be willing to make me 4 of these with the battery holder option? I can pay upfront, assuming a reasonable price for 4.

[@buyerenogurlfwendo2106]

People need to be paid a wage to make these.

[@rickdees251]

You're repeatably making piss poor soldered connections. What is that plumber's flux? Use a different flux or solder but something ain't right. Unless you're going to wire it wrong that diode is useless and unnecessary, imo.

[@VanwithTim]

The flux is some old RadioShack rosin soldering flux (like 10+ years old - could be an issue) The solder is Oatey rosin core electrical solder. The wire however is 30awg solid core. That was what was breaking at the solder joint (expect on the battery where I just couldn't get a good connection). Solder iron and tip are also 10+ years old. Honestly it's probably just me that's the problem lol As for the silly little 1a diode: the circuit should (probably) already have some kind of protection from a reverse flow (where the output's being powered but the input is not). Redundant, but I had a spare laying in the bin.