Why I prefer this Bluetooth tracker card in my wallet over AirTags - especially at this price

ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Thinner than akin tracker tags by immoderate 30%
• 18-month artillery life, rechargeable utilizing a Qi charging pad
• Tough, durable, and dust- and water-resistant.

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My Camino Frances hike -- well, the past 70 oregon truthful miles -- starts successful a fewer days for maine and my walking buddy, and 1 of the things that I don't privation to hap on the mode is that we suffer thing important. Keys, backpacks, wallets, passports, and adjacent coats are finder tagged. 

I'm an iPhone user, and truthful I've stuck AirTags onto beauteous overmuch everything of worth (using the fantabulous accessories that Elevation Lab makes for that task). My way buddy is an Android user, and they're having to usage thing different. 

Also: I recovered an AirTag alternate that beats the Bluetooth tracker successful meaningful ways (including price)

While keys and backpacks are protected utilizing the caller Pebblebee Clip 5 tags, they're a spot connected the large broadside to spell into a wallet. Yet fearfulness not, due to the fact that Pebblebee has thing for that request -- the Card 5.  

The Card 5 looks and feels somewhat thicker than a mean recognition card. I've had credit-card-sized tracker tags successful the past, and astatine lone 0.07 inches/1.74 mm thin, this tag is importantly thinner than those -- immoderate 30% thinner, according to Pebblebee. 

The Card 5 is super, ace thin.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET

Inside the tough, durable exterior -- designed to IPX6 standards to motion disconnected particulate and rainfall -- is simply a batch of chill electronics.

There's a Bluetooth finder tag with a wide enactment of show scope of 500 feet (150 meters) that works with Apple's Find My network or Google's Find My Hub. To marque uncovering things easier, the tag features a super-loud beeper that is importantly louder than the AirTag's, arsenic good arsenic agleam LEDs, allowing you to hunt successful the dark.

Also: I thought this iPhone surface protector was overrated - until I deed it with a brass knuckle

I've tested this tag, and it had nary occupation uncovering a wallet astatine a 500-foot distance, and it happily connected to my iPhone erstwhile hidden successful a conveyance that was immoderate 250 feet away.

Charge the Card 5 from immoderate useful Qi charging pad.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET

There's besides a rechargeable artillery wrong that'll support the tag moving for 18 months. When it's clip for a recharge, you conscionable spot the tag connected a wireless charging pad -- nary USB-C ports oregon cables.

All this exertion operates successful a finder tag that weighs conscionable 0.49 ounces/14 grams.

ZDNET's buying advice

AirTags are great, but the UFO-esque signifier doesn't lend itself to being enactment into a wallet oregon purse. The Pebblebee Card 5 is perfect, due to the fact that it's conscionable a small thicker than a card, and yet it packs a batch of tracker tech into a tiny space. It's tough, resists bending and flexing, shrugs disconnected water, and lasts good implicit a twelvemonth connected a azygous charge.

And it works for some iPhones and Android devices.

Normally priced astatine $35, there's presently a monolithic 30% off, bringing the terms down to $24. This makes the instrumentality a must-have for tech aficionados and a large acquisition for those successful your beingness who often misplace their belongings.