Suitcase chaos at airports - with these helpers you will find your luggage again

A week after returning from Australia, Dermot Lennon was at the end of his tether.

Suitcase chaos at airports - with these helpers you will find your luggage again

A week after returning from Australia, Dermot Lennon was at the end of his tether. His suitcase still hadn't arrived. Thousands of lost bags piled up at Dublin Airport. Without further ado, he returned to the airport, bought a plane ticket to Glasgow for 18 euros, which he used to get into the terminal, as he told an Irish radio station. But Lennon didn't want to fly at all, but went straight to the baggage carousel hall, where the suitcases were piled up - and after hours found his own again.

At least Lennon could have saved himself the time-consuming search. Tiny trackers are now able to indicate their location with an accuracy of a few centimetres. If they are placed in the case or attached to it with a loop, the location can be localized at any time.

Users can then see where the luggage is on a map in their smartphone app. However, like Lennon, you have to come up with some ideas in order to get to your luggage, because the suitcases are usually not freely accessible. But the airline could be given clues as to its whereabouts.

The trackers are often no bigger than a two-euro coin. Depending on the radio technology, your battery lasts up to a year. The location can be determined either via GPS satellite positioning or via Bluetooth.

Some providers also use a combination that is best described as crowd GPS. Other devices in the area record the location of the tracker via Bluetooth and transmit it to the owner anonymously and with an accuracy of a few meters via their own Internet connection.

A tracker can be located even more precisely using the ultra-wideband (UWB) radio standard. The user is then shown the direction and distance to the tracker. In that case, Lennon wouldn't have had to look far for his suitcase in Dublin. WELT AM SONNTAG tested some of the most popular trackers.

The Invoxia tracker is a good ten centimeters long and almost three centimeters wide. At 30 grams, it is one of the slightly heavier devices on the market. The location determination is determined via Wi-Fi and GPS. If it is not within Bluetooth range, it transmits the data to the smartphone app via the mobile network, using the energy-saving LTE-M wireless standard. This worked reliably in the test, even the path of the tracker is shown on a map.

Depending on the frequency of the location transmission, the battery life is between a few days and four months. The app can notify the user when the tracker moves or leaves or enters a pre-determined zone. Unfortunately, the tracker can currently only use the mobile network in Germany. It costs 129 euros and includes the tariff for the mobile service for the first year. After that, you have to pay 39.90 euros per year.

Deutsche Telekom's GPS tracker, being built by Alcatel, shares its location over the cellular network. This works practically without gaps in the Telekom network, the movement can be continuously tracked on a map. However, this means that the battery does not last longer than five days because it is constantly logged into the mobile network. The tracker is about the size of a small Apple Watch and weighs 33 grams. It can be used by Android and iPhone users alike, and the associated Movetrack app is available for both platforms.

The tracker can also be combined with the Magenta SmartHome app, for example to switch off the networked light when you leave the apartment with it. Users can set a zone and get a push notification when the tracker leaves them. In contrast to the Invoxia tracker, the Telekom tracker also transfers its data to other European countries.

The tracker contains a SIM card with an active mobile phone tariff that costs EUR 4.95 per month. With a term of twelve months, the tracker costs one euro, without a mobile phone tariff it is 69 euros, including silicone covers for attachment.

Samsung's tracker works similarly to Apple's AirTags. At 14 grams, the SmartTags are also lightweight. Unfortunately, they only work in conjunction with the manufacturer's Galaxy smartphones, on which the SmartTags are set up with Samsung's SmartThings app. If the Galaxy smartphone and the SmartTag are within Bluetooth range, they can be located to within a few centimeters using UWB radio technology. This works with the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G, Galaxy S21 5G, Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G and Galaxy Z Fold2 5G models. Users can use the app to play a sound on the SmartTags, vice versa, the SmartTag also finds the mobile phone and lets it beep.

Since the SmartTags are operated via the SmartThings app, users can also control devices in the networked home at the touch of a button on the tracker, for example turning on the light. Outside the Bluetooth range, the tracker can be located via the SmartThings Find network. This works, but the SmartTags are not found as often as the AirTags. A SmartTag costs 39.90 euros.

On the one hand, Apple's tracker looks like an oversized round chewy candy. On the other side, the Apple logo is engraved in a stainless steel cover, under which is a small button cell, as known from wristwatches. AirTags weigh only eleven grams and transmit via Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband (UWB), the battery lasts for over a year. However, they only work with Apple devices, an Android smartphone cannot locate an AirTag.

If the AirTag and the owner's iPhone are not within Bluetooth range of each other, the AirTag is located by the devices of other Apple users and the location is communicated to the AirTag owner anonymously and encrypted via the cloud in the "Where is?" app.

This also worked very well in the test, not least because several hundred million iPhones, iPads and Macs worldwide are part of the "Where is?" network - and thus automatically take part in the search.

The user can also use the iPhone app to play a tone that sounds like a chirp through the AirTag speaker. With the help of ultra-wideband wireless technology, Apple smartphones from the iPhone 11 can even locate the AirTags with an accuracy of a few centimeters if they are a few meters away. An AirTag costs 35 euros.

Tile's tracker works similarly to Apple's AirTags. However, the localization is not accurate to a few centimeters because the UWB radio technology is not installed. But via Bluetooth, the location can be determined very precisely via the Tile app. If the tracker is outside the Bluetooth range, which Tile specifies as 120 meters, it is located via the Tile network.

That consists of all those smartphones that have the Tile app installed. This includes Android smartphones as well as iPhones. In the test, the tracker could be located well in Berlin, albeit at a significantly lower frequency than the AirTags, which is ultimately due to the smaller number of devices that automatically take part in the search.

The battery of this tracker also lasts about a year. A sound can be triggered on the tracker via the smartphone app. It even works the other way around. If you press the Tile logo button twice in a row, your phone will ring. A Tile Pro costs 34.99 euros. The manufacturer offers its trackers in different shapes, also with the dimensions of a (thicker) credit card for the wallet.

Locating your own items is legally permissible. This applies to luggage and keys as well as to bicycles or your own car. Pets can also be tracked virtually. Tracking strangers without their consent, on the other hand, is illegal. Parents are allowed to track their children as long as they are still minors. But they should be made aware of this, because children also have a right to privacy. Trackers with a built-in microphone are banned in Germany.

Apple has built stalking protection into its AirTags so that people cannot be tracked unnoticed by foisting a tracker on them. If an AirTag is no longer connected to the user's iPhone for more than eight to 24 hours, it draws attention to itself with a tone. IPhone users will also get a notification on their device if someone else's AirTag that is not connected to their owner's iPhone is in their vicinity for an extended period of time. For Android smartphones, Apple's "Tracker Detection" app is available in the Play Store, which can find such AirTags in the area and play a sound on them.