With Bluetooth, it’s easy to lose our little accessories, be it headphones or something else. There are ways to find them. Here’s one, free.
Bluetooth devices are very common today. This technology is very common: it connects the Apple Watch and other Fitbits to the iPhone, wireless headphones to sound sources, controllers to our consoles. Who says wireless also says it’s easier to lose. Here is a mobile app that makes it easy to find your bluetooth accessory.
If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, you obviously have the Locate feature, which allows you to quickly access your accessory. With the Apple U1 chip, the system will even tell you how to find it. But not all Bluetooth devices are compatible, and not all of them are part of the Apple ecosystem. There are apps that work just like the U1 chip, regardless of your smartphone.
Find your lost Bluetooth accessory on iPhone and Android
Probably the best free app for this is Wunderfind, available on iOS and Android. After switching the payment screen to the paid version, the interface is simple, showing all nearby Bluetooth devices. Yours, of course, but also others you probably don’t know. Since Bluetooth has a range of about 10 meters, you can receive signals a little farther than your home.
Other free apps like LightBlue and Bluetooth BLE Device Finder also display such a list. What really sets Wunderfind apart is that it directs you to the accessory for free. When you touch one of the detected devices, a new screen will appear with a large circle and a small blue circle in the middle. The size of this blue circle depends on the distance to the desired accessory. The bigger it is, the closer you are.
Wunderfind reviews applaud this feature. It makes one wonder why more and more companies don’t offer apps like this. Apple Find My is a good start, but a similar feature could be added.
Hard to find AirTags with bluetooth tracking apps
Where these apps show their limitations is in AirTags. This will allow you to never lose your keys, wallet or other items. But they also allow you to chase someone. Apple has safeguards in place to prevent such use cases. If your iPhone detects a strange AirTag nearby for a while and the AirTag is far away from its owner, you will be alerted with an announcement on your iPhone and an alert sound from the AirTag. There is also an app for Android users to scan nearby AirTags.
These Bluetooth accessory finder apps cannot find AirTags. Surely special protection is implemented by Apple in its tracker. The Apple AirTag is not the only Bluetooth tracker on the market. Tiles also offers them. Are they visible in this app? Without having it, I couldn’t tell. But that’s if you try to use an app like this to find a Bluetooth tracker.
Either way, Wunderfind is a very good option for finding your lost Bluetooth device. If you want to pay for the €4.99 Pro version, you will have “Pro”features such as a sound to find lost accessories, notifications for lost or found accessories, a map of nearby Bluetooth accessories, etc.