Apple’s (AAPL) long-rumored AirTags are finally here, and starting May 30, they’ll be available to buy. The trackers attach to items like your keys or purse, hide in your wallet, or slide into your backpack and, if you misplace them, help you find them.

Starting at $29 for a single AirTag, and $99 for a four pack, Apple’s trackers offer a unique set of benefits like the Find My network, which can leverage Apple’s more than 1 billion iPhones around the world to help you locate your lost items. Competitors like Tile and Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag just can’t match these features.

Thinking of picking up an AirTag, or not quite sure whether they’re right for you? If you’re an iPhone owner who frequently misplaces things, the AirTags are an easy sell.

What exactly is an AirTag?

Apple’s AirTags are literally tracking devices. Yes, the kind of stuff that you’d think were science fiction just a decade ago. The trackers, roughly the diameter of a quarter, are built to help you find your most frequently misplaced items. When you buy an AirTag, though, that’s all you get; an AirTag. Nothing more.

That means you can drop the tracker into your wallet or backpack, or put it in an ever elusive glasses case, but you won’t be able to connect it to your keys or bag. To do that, you’ll need to buy a $35 keychain or $29 loop attachment. Naturally, you can buy less expensive non-Apple options, such as a $12 Belkin keychain.

AirTags have a battery that lasts about a year on a charge, and they pack a built-in speaker that lets you ping them when they’re nearby. Thankfully, they’re also water resistant.

What’s it like to use them?

Apple has made the AirTags easy to set up. Take them out of the box, pull the battery tab, and they’ll start searching for your iPhone right away just like the company’s AirPods.

There’s not even a new app for the AirTags. Instead, you use the Items tab in Apple’s built-in Find My app. In the app you’ll see a map with the location of your tag, as well as the option to put it into lost mode, or play a sound from it. If you lose your tag, you’ll still be able to see its location on the map thanks to any nearby iPhones. That’s because Apple’s Find My network of more than 1 billion devices can ping your AirTag and send its location back to you.

I live in Queens, NY, so there are plenty of iPhones around for my AirTag to ping off of. But what if you live in a suburban or rural area where people might not walk by as often? You put your AirTag in lost mode. This will allow someone who finds your tag to scan it to display a message containing your phone number, so they can call you and tell you they have your item.

There’s another neat trick Apple has added to AirTags, and that’s its compatibility with ultra-wideband technology. Using the U1 chip in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12, you can get a pinpoint location of your AirTag down to the foot. This feature turns your iPhone into a compass telling you which way to go and noting how far you are from your item.

The feature can be confused by obstructions like doors or walls, but if you’re in the same room as your item, it’s incredibly useful.

What about safety?

The AirTag is a tracker, and that means someone with more nefarious motives could potentially use it to track a person by slipping it into their coat or car without their knowledge. That’s where Apple’s safety features come in. If your iPhone detects an AirTag close to you that isn’t yours when you return home or at the end of the day you’ll receive an alert telling you the AirTag is on you. You can then scan the AirTag to determine whose it is. For Android users the AirTags will trigger an audible alert after a period of roughly three days.

It would be helpful if Apple could allow users to change the time period in which they are alerted to unknown AirTags in their vicinity, but Apple may be trying to account for the fact that you might be around AirTags owned by friends and family for a brief period of time.

Other options?

For iPhone users who don’t want an AirTag, your best option is one of Tile’s trackers. Available in four sizes—Sticker, Slim, Mate, and Pro—the trackers provide much of the same functionality as the AirTags, including using other Tile devices to help locate your lost items. That said, Tile doesn’t have the same scale as AirTags, so it could make finding your lost goods more difficult.

Tile also lacks the precision tracking offered by Apple’s ultra-wideband capabilities, so you’ll need to rely on the sound the tracker emits instead.

Samsung also has its own Galaxy SmartTags tracker that offers the same features as Tile, and uses Samsung’s SmartThings network to locate lost goods. An upgraded version of the SmartTags also features ultra-wideband precision tracking.

Still, AirTags are the most appealing option for iPhone users: They’re simple to use, relatively inexpensive, and effective at finding lost items. Android owners, though, will have to use Tiles trackers, while Samsung users might want to stick to the Galaxy SmartTags.

Clarification: IPhone users will receive an alert if an unknown AirTag is found on them at the end of the day, or when they return home. Android users will receive an alert after three days.

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