Five Years Later, Apple Finally Updates the AirTag
The first AirTag shipped in 2021 and then sat there, untouched, for five years while Apple refreshed nearly everything else in its lineup on an annual cadence. On January 26 that finally changed. Apple introduced the second-generation AirTag, and the interesting thing about it is how little it needed to change to stay ahead.
What is new
The upgrade rides on a single component: Apple's second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, the same one in the iPhone 17 lineup, iPhone Air, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and Series 11. Everything else follows from that. Precision Finding, the directional-arrow mode that walks you to a lost item with haptics and sound, now works from up to 50% farther away. An upgraded Bluetooth chip extends the general detection range on the Find My network. And the internal speaker is 50% louder, which Apple says lets you hear it from up to twice the distance, a genuinely useful change for anyone who has stood in a quiet room straining to locate a muffled chirp from inside a couch.
The headline addition is Apple Watch support. For the first time, Precision Finding runs on the Apple Watch Series 9 or later and Ultra 2 or later, independent of the phone, bringing the directional arrow to your wrist. Practical, if you keep your phone in a bag and your watch on your arm.
What is unchanged
Almost everything else. Same puck-shaped shell, so every existing key ring and holder still fits (the weight ticked up ever so slightly). Same replaceable CR2032 coin cell with more than a year of life. Same IP67 water resistance. And, notably, the same price: $29 for one, $99 for a four-pack, with free engraving. Orders opened January 26, retail availability later that week. It requires iOS 26 or iPadOS 26, and the Watch features need watchOS 26.2.1.
Why the five-year gap is the real story
Hardware companies do not leave a product untouched for five years because they forgot about it. They do it because the market gave them no reason to move. When AirTag launched, it effectively forced Tile, the previous category leader, into an exit, because Apple's finding network was born the size of the entire iPhone install base. Third-party estimates put AirTag at roughly 70% of trackers sold in late 2024. When you own the category that completely, the pressure to iterate is close to zero.
So this update is less about competition catching up and more about Apple harvesting a chip it had already built for other products. The UWB module was designed for the iPhone 17; dropping it into the AirTag was cheap, and it let Apple close the one gap rivals like Chipolo and Pebblebee could point to, which was range and cross-device support. That is not a criticism. It is a fairly elegant piece of platform economics: build the expensive part once, amortize it across the lineup, and refresh the accessory when the marginal cost is near zero.
Should you replace the ones you have
Probably not, and even Apple's own ecosystem press seems to agree the honest answer is "it depends." If you regularly rely on Find My to actually locate lost things, struggle to hear the old chirp, or want tracking from your wrist, the upgrade earns its $29. If your AirTag mostly lives on a keychain and gets found by tapping "Play Sound" from the next room, your 2021 unit is fine. Most people will do the sensible thing and let the new ones filter in as batteries die and bags get replaced.
A modest update, then. But sometimes the most revealing product release is the one that barely had to try.
Sources: Apple Newsroom (primary, all specs and pricing); TechCrunch (market-share context and Tile history); MacRumors (unchanged design, slight weight increase). Real-world range figures beyond Apple's "50% farther" claim (some outlets cite roughly 60m/200ft) are third-party estimates, not Apple specifications.