Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Announces Find My Network With Support for Third-Party Devices

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,515
30,790


Apple today announced the launch of its Find My network accessory program, which is designed to allow third-party Bluetooth devices to be tracked in the Find My app right alongside your Apple devices.

apple-find-my-network.jpg

According to Apple, the first accessory companies to take advantage of the new Find My integration include Belkin, Chipolo, and VanMoof, with devices set to be available beginning next week.

VanMoof's newest S3 and X3 e-bikes will integrate with Find My, as will Belkin's Soundform Freedom True Wireless Earbuds and the Chipolo ONE Spot item finder. Apple says that additional third-party manufacturers will offer Find My-enabled products and accessories soon.
"For more than a decade, our customers have relied on Find My to locate their missing or stolen Apple devices, all while protecting their privacy," said Bob Borchers, Apple's vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "Now we're bringing the powerful finding capabilities of Find My, one of our most popular services, to more people with the Find My network accessory program. We're thrilled to see how Belkin, Chipolo, and VanMoof are utilizing this technology, and can't wait to see what other partners create."
Click to expand...
Apple has a strict set of rules for devices that are part of the Find My Network accessory program, and all third-party products must adhere to all of the privacy protections of the Find My Network.

find-my-app-items-tab.jpg

Participating Find My products will be able to be found in the "Items" tab and will have a "Works with Apple Find My" badge. You will be able to see Find My accessories in the Find My app under the Items tab, where they can be tracked like Apple products. Third-party accessories can be added to the Find My app on devices running iOS 14.3 and later or macOS Big Sur 11.1 and later.

Find My accessories will be able to be tracked on a map and there will be an option to play a sound to locate a lost device. Items can be put into a Lost Mode, which locks them to an Apple ID and prevents another person from pairing to it. Items can be associated with a phone number and message in case someone finds it, and users can get notifications when an item's location becomes available.

find-my-lost-mode.jpg

Third-party Find My devices will be able to take advantage of the Find My network that uses crowdsourced data from millions of Apple devices to detect missing devices or items and report an approximate location back to the owner.

works-with-apple-find-my.jpg

Apple today also announced a draft specification for chipset manufacturers that will be released later in the spring. It will allow third-party device manufacturers to take advantage of the Ultra Wideband technology in U1-equipped Apple devices, such as the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 lineups. U1 integration will allow for a more precise, directionally aware item location experience.

Article Link: Apple Announces Find My Network With Support for Third-Party Devices
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/07/apple-announces-find-my-network-third-party-devices/
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: DeepIn2U
L

Lemon Olive

Suspended
Nov 30, 2020
1,208
1,324
nate13 said:
Seems like a missed opportunity to announce Airtags, unless they want to promote the other companies using their system first as a demonstration that they aren't really eating Tile's lunch. I wonder if Tile will step up to the plate and integrate with this?
Click to expand...
AirTags could easily be an in-house product developed specifically for testing/developing this Find My Network.
 
  • Like
  • Sad
Reactions: udontno, Robert.Walter, sully54 and 6 others
ipedro

ipedro

macrumors 603
Nov 30, 2004
6,231
8,487
Toronto, ON
I’ve long been getting the sense that AirTags wasn’t a product but instead a technology like AirPrint and AirPlay that third party manufacturers could integrate into their products.

With built in Find My capability, I don’t see much of a market for Apple to introduce its own. Apple is already highlighting the Chipolo key finder, identical to what an AirTag was rumoured to be. What will an Apple AirTag do differently?

I’m guessing Apple saw the potential Tile lawsuit and didn’t think it was worth piling on another example of monopoly that can aide in making an antitrust case against them, and decided it wasn’t worth the meagre revenue from $30-$50 tags.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • Disagree
Reactions: Guppy Guy, aikinai, Robert.Walter and 7 others
Rochy Bay

Rochy Bay

Suspended
Apr 5, 2016
271
118
Cupertino, CA
MacRumors said:


Apple today announced the launch of its Find My network accessory program, which is designed to allow third-party Bluetooth devices to be tracked in the Find My app right alongside your Apple devices.

apple-find-my-network.jpg

According to Apple, the first accessory companies to take advantage of the new Find My integration include Belkin, Chipolo, and VanMoof, with devices set to be available beginning next week.

VanMoof's newest S3 and X3 e-bikes will integrate with Find My, as will Belkin's Soundform Freedom True Wireless Earbuds and the Chipolo ONE Spot item finder. Apple says that additional third-party manufacturers will offer Find My-enabled products and accessories soon.Apple has a strict set of rules for devices that are part of the Find My Network accessory program, and all third-party products must adhere to all of the privacy protections of the Find My Network.

find-my-app-items-tab.jpg

Participating Find My products will be able to be found in the "Items" tab and will have a "Works with Apple Find My" badge. You will be able to see Find My accessories in the Find My app under the Items tab, where they can be tracked like Apple products. Third-party accessories can be added to the Find My app on devices running iOS 14.3 and later or macOS Big Sur 11.1 and later.

Find My accessories will be able to be tracked on a map and there will be an option to play a sound to locate a lost device. Items can be put into a Lost Mode, which locks them to an Apple ID and prevents another person from pairing to it. Items can be associated with a phone number and message in case someone finds it, and users can get notifications when an item's location becomes available.

find-my-lost-mode.jpg

Third-party Find My devices will be able to take advantage of the Find My network that uses crowdsourced data from millions of Apple devices to detect missing devices or items and report an approximate location back to the owner.

works-with-apple-find-my.jpg

Apple today also announced a draft specification for chipset manufacturers that will be released later in the spring. It will allow third-party device manufacturers to take advantage of the Ultra Wideband technology in U1-equipped Apple devices, such as the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 lineups. U1 integration will allow for a more precise, directionally aware item location experience.

Article Link: Apple Announces Find My Network With Support for Third-Party Devices
Click to expand...
Sounds like a google wifi/network copy.
 
  • Disagree
Reactions: insomniac86, mazz0, KeithBN and 2 others
JosephAW

JosephAW

macrumors 603
May 14, 2012
5,958
7,911
At first I thought Apple was providing software to use a vpn tunnel to your home network.

Why do I have a bad feeling about this new feature that it will be hacked and abused in the future. :rolleyes:
 
  • Like
Reactions: innovationwho
H

HacKage

macrumors 6502
May 14, 2010
499
906
This could be a game changer. The ability for 3rd party products to be able to be blocked from pairing with a new device that's marked as "lost" will hopefully have far more people reunited with their lost belongings.

The fact that there will be tens of millions of iPhones or other Apple devices out there quietly transmitting the location of any lost item is a massive plus point.

I do wonder if it would be possible for Apple to implement the U1 to act as a beacon even when a device is switched off or has a "dead" battery? The power requirements for ultra wideband transmission are unbelievably low, and a device that has a battery that is "dead" will still have enough charge in it to transmit the location even every 1, 10 or 60 minutes.

A CR2032 battery has around 235mAh, and in most trackers that utilise that cell gives around 1 year of battery life at a once every 10 seconds refresh rate. What if increasing this refresh rate to once every 1000 seconds (around 15 minutes) on a "dead" device, would that roughly equate to 1 years worth of transmissions for around 25mAh battery, something that almost all mobile phone batteries will have available even when "dead"?
 
  • Like
Reactions: DailySlow, blob.DK and TraceyS/FL
J

javanate

macrumors regular
May 13, 2005
158
562
Airtag announcement probably coming, this makes the keynote nice and smooth. "Our Airtags intergrate perfectly with the Find My app we announced this month" and you don't have to explain all that because it's already been out.
 
I

icanhazapple

macrumors 6502a
Feb 26, 2009
578
1,246
djcerla said:
Humble beginning for a huge thing.
Click to expand...

Exactly. This part -

"Third-party Find My devices will be able to take advantage of the Find My network that uses crowdsourced data from millions of Apple devices to detect missing devices or items and report an approximate location back to the owner."

Is absolutely massive, and was Tile's Achilles heel. Apple has solved this problem and has reduced the tracking hardware products to a commodity. The value is in the platform/software being integrated into this Billion+ Apple device distributed tracking network.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2Stepfan, sidewinder3000, Mescagnus and 2 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom