The Best Luggage Trackers

What a tracker actually does

It prevents nothing. This is worth saying at the top because the category is marketed as security and it is not. A tracker does one thing: it tells you where your bag is when the airline cannot.

That turns out to be enormously valuable, and not for the reason people expect. The value is not that you go and collect the bag yourself — you usually cannot, because it is airside. The value is that “the system shows it in transit” becomes “it is at Charles de Gaulle, terminal 2E” in a conversation at a baggage desk. A specific location changes what a carrier can tell you and what they do next.

The platform lock is the whole decision

Neither of these is cross-platform, and neither maker pretends otherwise. Apple publishes AirTag as an Apple ecosystem product; Chipolo publishes that the ONE Point requires Android 9 or later with Google Play Services and works with Google’s Find My Device app rather than with Chipolo’s own.

Both networks work the same way: the tracker is a Bluetooth beacon with no GPS and no cellular connection. It is found because some stranger’s phone walked past it and reported the sighting. Which means the network that matters is the one with more phones where you are traveling, and for most readers that is simply whichever ecosystem their own phone belongs to.

120 decibels is the underrated spec

Chipolo publishes an alarm of up to 120 dB. Apple publishes no figure for AirTag’s speaker at all, and it is widely understood to be much quieter.

This matters in a specific and common situation: the bag is in the room and you cannot see it. A carousel, a pile of gate-checked bags at a jet bridge, a hotel luggage store. A map pin tells you it is within thirty feet. An alarm tells you which bag.

Against that, AirTag publishes a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip for Precision Finding, which gives you a direction and a distance rather than a sound. Both solve the last-thirty-feet problem; they solve it in opposite ways, and the sound works even when the bag is inside something.

IP67 against IPX5

The gap here is larger than it looks. Apple publishes IP67 — dust tight, and immersion to a meter for thirty minutes. Chipolo publishes IPX5 — resistance to a low-pressure water jet, with no dust rating stated at all.

Baggage is loaded on open carts, in the rain, and stands in puddles. A splash rating is genuinely marginal for a checked bag in bad weather, and it is the clearest specification-level advantage on this page.

Where to put it in the bag

• Inside, not outside. A tracker clipped to an exterior loop is a tracker someone can remove. Inside a packing cube in the middle of the bag is fine — Bluetooth passes through fabric and clothing without difficulty.
• Not in an exterior pocket that gets opened. The one place people put it is the place a thief looks first.
• One per checked bag. Two in the same bag tells you nothing extra. If you travel with three bags, that is three trackers.
• It stays in the bag permanently. The failure mode of a tracker is being in the drawer at home on the trip where you needed it.

The battery rule does not apply

A frequent question, and the answer is reassuring: a CR2032 coin cell is a tiny fraction of a watt-hour, nowhere near the 100 Wh threshold that governs power banks, and both makers publish these as products intended for luggage.

The distinction that matters is between a spare lithium battery — which is prohibited in the hold — and a battery installed in a device, which is what a tracker is. The full battery rules.

The verdict

• You own an iPhone → AirTag (2nd generation). There is no decision to make: it publishes the better water rating and Precision Finding, and the Chipolo will not pair at all.
• You own an Android phone → Chipolo ONE Point, and the 120 dB alarm is a genuine advantage rather than a consolation.
• You check bags in wet climates → the IP67 rating is the spec to weigh, and only one product here publishes it.
• You never check a bag → you do not need one of these. A carry-on that stays with you is not a bag you lose. When checking is worth it.