Device guides
What have you lost?
Every device is a different search. Battery life sets your deadline, and the places each one ends up are surprisingly predictable.
11 guides
Audio
About 5 to 6 hours per earbud, roughly 24
AirPods
AirPods are the most-lost consumer device in existence, and the reason is mechanical rather than careless: they are sm…
Around 6 hours of listening, up to 30
AirPods Pro
AirPods Pro have one advantage over the standard model when they are lost: the case has a speaker, so Apple’s own Find…
Holds around 24 hours of earbud charge
AirPods case
A closed AirPods case is a small Faraday-ish problem. The lid shut means the earbuds are not advertising the way they …
About 30 hours with noise cancelling o
Sony WH-1000XM headphones
Over-ear headphones are lost in fewer places than earbuds and they broadcast a much clearer name, an LE_WH-1000XM5 in…
Around 24 hours over-ear, 6 hours per
Bose QuietComfort headphones
Bose devices broadcast an unusually readable name, often with the model right there in the string, which means identi…
Around 6 hours per earbud, 40 hours on
Beats earbuds and headphones
Beats sit in an awkward middle ground: they are Apple-owned and support Find My on newer models, but the coverage vari…
Roughly 5 to 8 hours per earbud depending
Samsung Galaxy Buds
If you own Galaxy Buds and an iPhone, you are in the gap between two ecosystems: Samsung’s SmartThings Find needs an A…
12 to 20 hours typical, days on standby
Bluetooth speaker
Portable speakers are lost outdoors more than indoors, parks, beaches, festivals, gardens, the boot of someone else’s…
Anywhere from 5 hours on earbuds to 40
Bluetooth headphones
The brand matters far less than people assume. Every pair of Bluetooth headphones advertises itself the same way, and …
About 20 hours, weeks in the Smart Cas
AirPods Max
AirPods Max are almost never lost the way earbuds are. They are too big to fall out of a pocket unnoticed, so the fail…
6 to 12 hours talk time, days on standby
Bluetooth headset
Single-ear headsets live in a working day: on for a call, off between them, into a pocket or onto a desk. That is a lo…
10 guides
Home
Months on coin cells
TV remote
Whether a remote is findable comes down to one question: does it use infrared or Bluetooth? An old-fashioned infrared …
Weeks
Kindle
A Kindle is a partial case. Bluetooth is only enabled on models with Audible support and only when the radio is switch…
About 20 hours on a Joy-Con, 40 on a P
Nintendo Switch
The console itself is usually easy to find. The Joy-Cons are not, they are small, they detach, and in a house with ch…
10 to 40 hours in use, weeks asleep
Game controller
Controllers are lost into furniture rather than out of the house, and they have one property that makes them easy: the…
2 to 8 hours in use, days in sleep
Steam Deck or handheld
Handhelds are lost the way tablets are: put somewhere sensible and forgotten, rather than dropped. That makes it a pla…
8 to 20 hours on the parent unit
Baby monitor
Baby monitors move around the house more than almost any other device, which is precisely why the parent unit ends up …
Mains powered, always on, always broa
Soundbar or TV audio
Soundbars are rarely lost. They are, however, one of the top three reasons people run a Bluetooth scan and find someth…
Months on AAA cells
Smart scale
Smart scales are a good illustration of a general rule: a device that only broadcasts when it is being used is much ha…
Mains powered, always broadcasting
Smart speaker
Smart speakers are among the most common devices to appear in a scan that people cannot immediately account for, for a…
2 to 3 hours on a headset
VR headset
The headset is rarely what goes missing. The controllers are, because they get put down mid-session and the room they …
7 guides
Wearable
18 hours typical, 36+ on Ultra models,
Apple Watch
An Apple Watch is easier than most lost devices because it is bigger, it holds charge for a day, and it usually comes …
About 5 to 10 days depending on model
Fitbit
Fitbits come off wrists at night and in changing rooms, and they are small, dark and matte, the worst possible combin…
One to three weeks on most models, lon
Garmin watch
Garmin watches are the most forgiving device in this list. Weeks of battery means a scan run long after the loss still…
Around 16 to 24 hours rechargeable
Hearing aids
A lost hearing aid is a more serious problem than a lost earbud, both in replacement cost and in daily impact, and the…
Four to seven days
Smart ring
A smart ring is the hardest object in this list to find visually and one of the easier ones to find by radio. It is me…
About 4 hours of active use, longer id
Smart glasses
Ordinary glasses are the classic un-findable object. Smart glasses are the exception: they have a radio, which means f…
1 to 3 days on most models
Android smartwatch
If you own an Android smartwatch and an iPhone, or you are looking for a family member's watch from your own phone, th…
5 guides
Tracker
About a year on a CR2032 coin cell
AirTag
“Find an AirTag” means two opposite things and it matters which one you are here for.…
One to three years depending on model
Tile tracker
A Tile is a Bluetooth beacon, which makes it one of the easiest things in this list to detect, broadcasting continuou…
Months on a coin cell tag
Pet tracker
The usual scenario is not a lost pet but a lost collar, it comes off in the garden or in undergrowth and the tag is s…
Six months to two years on a coin cell
Chipolo and budget tags
Budget Bluetooth tags are simple beacons. They shout their name at a fixed interval and do nothing else, which makes t…
Three to five months, rechargeable on
Bluetooth wallet card
A card tracker turns a wallet from an un-findable object into a findable one, which is the entire point of it.…
4 guides
Vehicle
Days to weeks on standby
Electric scooter or e-bike
Electric scooters and e-bikes pair with their manufacturer app over Bluetooth, which means they broadcast an identifie…
Two to six hours in use, weeks on stan
Drone controller
Drone kit gets lost outdoors, in fields and car parks, spread across a bag with a dozen compartments. The controller a…
Vehicle battery
Parked car
Finding a parked car is two problems. The first is the level and the row, which is a memory problem. The second is con…
Runs from the vehicle
Dash cam
Most dash cams pair with a phone app over Bluetooth to hand off the Wi-Fi connection for video download, which means t…
2 guides
Laptop
Up to about 18 hours in use, weeks in
MacBook
A MacBook is not usually lost at home, it is left somewhere. Which desk, which room, which building. That makes it a …
Up to a working day in use, days in sl
Windows laptop
A Windows laptop is almost never lost in a house. It is left in an office, a lecture hall, a meeting room or a shared …
2 guides
Desk
Weeks to months
Bluetooth mouse or keyboard
Desk peripherals are usually lost in the move, an office change, a house move, a bag packed in a hurry, rather than …
Days to weeks
Stylus or digital pen
A stylus is the hardest shape in this list to find visually: thin, cylindrical, one colour, and it rolls until somethi…
2 guides
Camera
1 to 2 hours recording, days on standby
GoPro or action camera
Action cameras get lost in exactly the environments where searching is hardest: fields, beaches, snow, boats, and bags…
A few hundred shots
Camera
Nearly every camera made in the last decade has Bluetooth for pairing with a phone app. Whether it appears in a scan c…
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