It's a small and cheap device that promises to do one thing really well: locate your suitcase if it goes missing. Many travellers soon heading to the airport will find themselves wondering if they need a luggage tracker.
How helpful are they really?
"I would say that a tracker is generally worthwhile, especially for people who travel a lot, because it is very easy to lose your luggage these days," says Ben Schwan from specialist magazine Mac & i.
The investment is modest: depending on the model, trackers cost between $20 and $30 or €20 and €30. There are also no ongoing fees, "at least for the trackers that are popular and widely used today," Schwan says.
Among the most popular options are Apple AirTags, recommended for anyone travelling with an iPhone, and trackers from Tile or Samsung (Galaxy SmartTags) for Android users. All use short-range wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, as well as other devices, to capture and transmit location data.
Getting it up and running is straightforward, even for non-technical users. "You buy the device, and then set it up, usually with a smartphone app or through the smartphone itself," Schwan explains. "That works with Android and with iOS, depending on which tracker you have."
A common question is whether battery-powered trackers are permitted on flights at all. Schwan says this is not an issue: "The devices mostly use very low-voltage, small button cells." Airlines have no problem with them, he says, and some have even formed partnerships with tracker manufacturers.
"You can quite easily share the tracker's data if, for example, a piece of luggage has gone missing," Schwan says. Airlines are sometimes even pleased about this, he adds, because it makes such cases easier to handle.
Anyone reporting lost luggage with an airline should immediately mention that they have a tracker in their suitcase - and if possible provide an initial location, for example: "The suitcase is still in Paris and I am already in Berlin," Schwan says. This helps speed up the search.
If a traveller is flying with an airline that has a partnership with a tracker manufacturer - such as Lufthansa with Apple - and the airline has a corresponding interface, the passenger can share the luggage's location data directly, giving the airline faster access to the information, Schwan says.
"It appears that millions of pieces of luggage have already been found a little faster as a result," he says.
