Apple announced Apple’s Find My network supports third-party products

There have been rumors about Apple’s Find My network supporting other products, and there is also news that Apple is developing AirTags tags to support finding products.

Although AirTags has not yet been released, Apple has opened up the Find My function, and now products provided by other manufacturers can also access the Apple search network.

Users can check the location of these items through the Find My function. For example, when they can’t find the headset or the key, use this function to find the location to make it easier to search.

After announcing the opening of this function, the first batch of supported products has also been unveiled, including general-purpose item trackers, smart earphones, and VanMoof smart bicycles.

Image: Apple

Apple’s Find My network function is essentially based on wireless connectivity technologies such as Bluetooth. For example, Bluetooth can be used to detect and locate items with related tags.

But how to find those devices that are not connected to the Internet if they are far away? The similar mesh Bluetooth network used behind this uses many devices for relay transmission and so on.

This Apple network is called a crowdsourcing network. When a search command is issued, the item location information will be encrypted and transmitted to other devices through the surrounding Apple devices.

This is equivalent to passing the item information back to Apple through relay transmission so that Apple can easily locate those devices that are not connected to the Internet.

Therefore, small accessories such as item trackers do not need to be connected to the Internet or need to support positioning. Therefore, item trackers with a lower cost and smaller volume can be manufactured.

At the same time that Apple announced the opening of the search function, the first batch of products that support this function was officially unveiled, including the very well-known Chipolo ONE Spot item.

This tracker is a very simple button-type item tag. The tag is so small that it can be hung directly on the keychain or other common items.

When users need to be matched, they can directly retrieve their location through Apple’s Find My network. This compact product is more versatile and should be very popular.