The best Bluetooth trackers for finding lost stuff in 2024

Battery: Replaceable CR2032 (up to 1 year) | Supports Apple Find My: No | Rated range: 400 feet | Ultra-wideband: No | LEDs: No

I've been a Tile user for years; until AirTags came along, I'd say it was the only worthwhile tracking game in town. Now there's quite a lot of competition — so am I sticking with Tile?

I am, because right now it comes closest to best-of-all-worlds tracking: two-way communication (phone-to-tracker and tracker-to-phone) and a sizable network of Tile users, which can help in locating a lost item. Granted, it's nowhere near the size of Apple's Find My network, but Tile is so confident in its effectiveness, you can get an item-reimbursement insurance policy (as part of an optional subscription).

Setup couldn't be simpler; the app walks you through the few required steps, ending with an appeal to subscribe to Tile Premium or Premium Protect. These plans, priced at $30 and $100 per year, respectively, include benefits like item reimbursement, smart alerts and free battery replacement.

I'm on the fence about these, because while item reimbursement offers peace of mind, compatible CR2032 batteries cost all of $6 for a 10-pack. Meanwhile, other trackers provide smart alerts (aka left-behind notifications) at no additional cost. If you're not sure a Premium plan is worth the money, Tile offers a 30-day free trial.

The Pro is arguably the best product in Tile's lineup, offering better range and a louder chime than the slightly cheaper Tile Mate. It also has a replaceable battery. It's not quite as loud as the Chipolo and Pebblebee trackers, but it's close, and definitely louder than the Apple and Eufy products.

Like the latter, the Tile Pro has a "scan me if found" message printed on the back side, along with a QR code. However, while the text here is larger and easier to notice (and read), the code is actually a hair smaller than Eufy's. Unsurprisingly, I had an even harder time scanning it with my smartphone.

There's no Apple Find My option available here; the Tile Pro relies exclusively on Tile's app. It's pretty good overall, offering your choice of ringtones, an unlimited sharing option so others can locate your Tile, support for Siri in addition to Alexa and Google, and even the option to assign a photo to your Tile (attached to your keychain, for example) so you can easily spot it if you have multiples.

However, the app shares only one day's worth of location data (unless you have a Premium subscription, in which case you get 30 days), and it's unusually stubborn about letting you delete old or unused Tiles. The aforementioned photo option isn't intuitive at all; you wouldn't know the option existed unless you happened to tap the Tile's icon.

Those gripes aside, I really like the Tile Pro, especially for Android users. My spouse uses her Pro almost daily to locate her phone around the house; a double-press of the button makes it ring, loudly, even if it's set to silent. Unless you specifically want to take advantage of Apple's Find My network, there's currently no better tracker to buy.

Battery: Replaceable CR2032 (up to 1 year) | Supports Apple Find My: Yes | Rated range: 260 feet | Ultra-wideband: No | LEDs: No

A Find My-compatible tracker priced at just $20? I'm listening. At first blush, the Eufy Security SmartTrack Link seems like a square version of the Chipolo One Spot, only cheaper and with the added benefit of a scan-if-found QR code on the back. That's all true, but there are a couple important caveats.

The biggest one: The Link doesn't work with Android devices. When the product was first released, Eufy did seem to have Android support in the works, but now the product page clearly notes that Android isn't supported. That's a shame. 

iPhone users, meanwhile, are faced with a familiar conundrum: Use the Eufy app and enjoy two-way tracking, or let the Link live under the Apple Find My umbrella. You'll have to decide which benefits you prefer, but even if you decide to go with Find My, you should do an initial setup using the app. That's because the tracker has a QR code imprinted on the back, along with the message "scan me if found." I love that, as it gives Good Samaritans an easy way to get in touch if they find your keychain (or whatever the tracker is attached to).

However, if you don't set up this Lost Mode in the Eufy Security app, providing whatever contact information you care to include, anyone scanning that code will end up at a blank page. This requirement isn't mentioned anywhere in Eufy's quick-start guide; if you were to bypass the app and opt for setup using Find My, you'd miss out on this genuinely useful feature.

Unfortunately, it's not as useful as it should be: Both the QR code and "scan if found" message are tiny and easily overlooked. In fact, my phone had difficulty reading the QR code owing to its small size and light print. There's room on the back to make these items larger; this was another misfire on Eufy's part.

For what it's worth, the Eufy Security app is nicely designed and fairly intuitive, and the find-my-phone option (activated via a double-press of the Link) worked well. And the tracker emits a reasonably loud beep, though nowhere near the volume of the Chipolo and Pebblebee products. So even with its flaws, this is a budget option worth considering.

Battery: Replaceable CR2032 (up to 1 year) | Supports Apple Find My: Yes | Rated range: N/A | Ultra-wideband: Yes | LEDs: No

The good news: Apple's AirTag is one of the most powerful trackers you can get, as it leverages the iPhone like no other device can. The bad news: I said "iPhone" because that's where AirTag compatibility ends. If you're an Android user, you'll need to find something else because this is only for Apple users.

True to its Apple lineage, the AirTag is a small, shiny white disc — the smallest tracker in the group, in fact. However, it comes without any kind of case or clip, meaning if you want to attach it to anything (a keychain, for example), you'll need to buy an accessory. That's incredibly annoying, as it limits what you can do with the tracker right out of the box.

At least setup is a breeze: Once you pull off the plastic sleeve, the AirTag's battery activates and prompts a "connect" button on your iPhone. A few taps and you're done; now the AirTag appears in the Find My app, where you can set up notifications, activate Lost Mode, make it play a sound and, of course, actually track the tracker. As noted above, it's the unrivaled global network of iPhone users that makes AirTags so effective, as you have a much better chance of locating one out in the world than you would via Bluetooth alone.

One potentially useful feature is Notify When Left Behind: Your phone will ping you if it gets separated from your keys, purse or whatever else the AirTag is attached to. Unfortunately, in my tests (in which I left the AirTag at home), this didn't work well: notifications appeared on my phone only after I'd traveled a fair distance, anywhere from half a mile to 2 miles. I need this to kick in much sooner, but there's no way to adjust notification distance.

In my in-the-house testing, the AirTag was detected at 30 feet but not a foot farther. When it's within range, an onscreen arrow appears to help point you in its direction, meaning you don't have to rely just on beeps. That's good, because the AirTag isn't very loud; the compass addition definitely helps. And this feature, which is powered by an iPhone's augmented-reality (AR) capabilities and the AirTag's ultra-wideband (UWB) radio, isn't available with other Find My-compatible trackers; it's unique to AirTags.

Still, as useful as one of these can be for helping you find a missing item (with pinpoint accuracy), they offer no assistance in finding your phone. In my house, it's the latter that most often gets lost; I almost always know where my keys are. In an ideal world, I'd be able to press a button on the AirTag and it would make my phone ring, even when set to mute. A few other trackers here can do that, including the Pebblebee Clip and Tile Pro. But the AirTag is a one-way device.

That's unfortunate, because half its potential is wasted. I'm hopeful Apple will engineer the AirTag 2 (or AirTag Plus or whatever it ends up being called) with two-way tracking. As it stands right now, the AirTag is a solid choice for iPhone users — and only iPhone users. Just be sure to factor in the added cost of a clip or case.

Battery: Replaceable CR2032 (up to 1 year) | Supports Apple Find My: Yes | Rated range: 200 feet | Ultra-wideband: No | LEDs: No

Picture Apple's AirTag. Now picture a slightly larger, all-black plastic version with an embedded keyring hole. That's the Chipolo One Spot in a nutshell. And it similarly works exclusively with Apple Find My, meaning Android users will have to choose something else.

So why would you buy this? If it's just like an AirTag and priced within a dollar of an AirTag, why not just buy an AirTag? One big reason is the aforementioned hole: Right out of the box, you can add this to your keychain, no accessory required.

Second, the One Spot is probably the loudest — I'd say nearly twice as loud as an AirTag, in fact. Chipolo claims 120 decibels for its tracker; Apple doesn't specify a loudness level for the AirTag, but some independent tests peg it at around 60 decibels. Needless to say, you're much more likely to hear the One Spot in a noisy environment.

That's important, because it lacks the AirTag's ultra-wideband (UWB) capabilities, meaning there's no onscreen compass that can steer you to exactly the tracker's location. But thanks to the extra-loud beeping, you probably won't need it.

Chipolo commendably supplies some printed setup instructions that explain not only how to set up the One Spot, but also its basic features. And setup couldn't be much easier: You simply fire up the Find My app, choose Add Other Item, then press the One Spot. A few seconds later, presto, you're connected and configured.

In real-world testing, the tracker performed more or less exactly on par with the AirTag, both in terms of Bluetooth range and Find My location monitoring. It is, for all intents and purposes, simply a louder version of that tracker, one with the added advantage of a keyhole.

So, if you don't care about the AirTag's aesthetic superiority (much of which is lost anyway when you put it inside a case), the One Spot makes a fine alternative. Maybe even a superior one.

Battery: Rechargeable (up to 6 months) | Supports Apple Find My: Yes | Rated range: 500 feet | Ultra-wideband: No | LEDs: Yes

Think all trackers are alike? The Pebblebee Clip stands out with two key features not offered elsewhere. First, it's rechargeable, with a battery life of about six months, according to Pebblebee. That certainly beats having to buy and replace a CR2032 battery every year. Second, it has two LED strips embedded on the side; they flash when the tracker beeps, giving you one more way to potentially locate your lost thing. Indeed, that alone makes this the best choice for the hearing-impaired, though it offers plenty to recommend it for all users.

Like several other trackers here, this one can work with the Pebblebee app (available for Android and iOS) or Apple Find My. Whichever you choose, setup is a snap: Just open the preferred app, double-press the Clip, then follow a few onscreen prompts to establish a connection. The Pebblebee app does require an email address, which produces a verification code you'll enter as a one-time chore. I did encounter a rather confusing "turn on Bluetooth" request from that app (even though on my phone it was already on), but otherwise setup went smoothly.

The Clip is a bit larger than most, with an embedded key ring hole and a fairly stiff front-side button (one that's not likely to get pressed by accident). If you do end up using the Pebblebee app, a single press of that button is all it takes to make your phone play a jingle, guitar riff, siren or the like. Similarly, you can choose between several sounds to be played by the tracker itself; most other trackers, the AirTag included, limit you to just one sound effect.

The app offers a "left behind" feature similar to Apple's, but again there's no way to adjust the distance needed to trigger a notification — and in my tests I was always quite far away before receiving one on my phone. There's also something called Virtual Fences, which can alert you when the tracker moves beyond a designated area drawn on a map. This is of somewhat limited value given that the Clip can't know if it has left the "fenced" area unless it's also within Bluetooth range of your phone; it has no GPS or cellular capabilities of its own. Another Pebblebee product, the Found LTE, has both; I think the Virtual Fences feature is intended more for that.

If you're unable to locate your Clip (think: keys fell out of pocket), you can mark it "lost" within the app. This will engage Pebblebee's CrowdGPS network, which is similar to Apple FindMy and Tile networks: If a Pebblebee user gets within range of your Clip, you'll get an updated location. Unfortunately, that network is likely to be considerably smaller than Tile's, which itself is a fraction of Apple's.

I like the Pebble app a lot; it's well-designed and intuitive, one of the most user-friendly I've seen. It offers a detailed tracker-location history and explains how to set up your Clip for use with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. To that end, you can configure the tracker with one of a couple dozen "voice tags," such as purse, backpack, keys or even camera. That way, you can be specific about what you want help finding: "Alexa, ask Pebblebee to find my purse," for example.

I can't say for sure whether the Clip can really last a full six months on a charge, but even if you have to recharge after, say, four months, a quick visit to the included USB-C cable tops you off. I will say I had a very hard time resetting the tracker following the included instructions; it usually took several attempts.

Fortunately, that's not something you're likely to do very often, or at all, unless you're making the switch between Find My and the Pebblebee app. With its very good range, loud chimes, flashing LEDs and rechargeable battery, the Clip is a top pick in the tracker category.