New Apple AirTag boasts louder speaker, new chime, and expanded range, so it's even harder to lose your keys

For this second-generation tracker, Apple has reworked the internal design of the AirTag to ensure the built-in speaker is 50% louder than the previous generation, which it says should make owners able to hear their misplaced item from up to 2x farther than before.

It's also equipped with Apple’s second-generation Ultra Wideband chip — that's the same chip found in the iPhone 17 lineup, iPhone Air, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and Apple Watch Series 11 — making it easier to locate than ever before.

This enables Apple's Precision Finding system, which uses haptic, real-time distance in the visual, and audio feedback to guide owners to their lost items from up to 50% farther away than the previous generation. Coupled with the upgraded Bluetooth chip, this new model has an expanded range at which items can be located.

For the first time, users can use Precision Finding on Apple Watch Series 9 or later, or Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later, to find their AirTag, bringing a powerful experience to the wrist.

Apple has also refreshed the distinctive chime for this second-generation AirTag — all designed to make it easier than ever before to find your most important items, whether that's a bunch of keys buried down the back of the sofa, a wallet that's still in the breast pocket of a jacket in the cupboard, or a suitcase that's been left at the airport.

If your luggage was left behind, it's easier than ever before to leverage the tracking capabilities of the AirTag to make sure you're reunited as quickly as possible.

Share Item Location is a feature introduced to iOS to help AirTag owners recover a misplaced item by temporarily and securely sharing its location with trusted third parties, like an airline, so you can cover delayed luggage or other lost items. The shared location will be disabled as soon as a user is reunited with their item, can be stopped by the owner at any time, and will automatically expire after seven days.

Apple has partnered directly with more than 50 airlines to privately and securely accept Share Item Location links.

Data shared by SITA, a leading IT provider for airlines, shows that carriers report that Share Item Location has reduced baggage delays by 26% and reduced incidences of “truly lost” or unrecoverable luggage by 90%.

The new AirTag is designed to keep location data private and secure.

The circular gadget doesn’t physically store location data or history on-device, so there's nothing to steal from its circuit board if you don't retrieve the AirTag. Apple relies on end-to-end encryption to protect all communication with the Find My network, ensuring that only the owner of a device can access its location data. No one, including Apple, knows the identity or location of any device that helped find it.

Designed exclusively for tracking objects, and not people or pets, the new AirTag incorporates a suite of protections to block unwanted tracking, including Bluetooth identifiers that change frequently.

Apple will warn whenever a device that's not linked to your Apple Account is moving with you — stopping these devices from being planted on someone to keep tabs on their location without their knowledge.

This also works across Android and iOS, so you won't be able to use an AirTag to track someone just because they don't own an iPhone, or vice versa.

AirTag is available now from the Apple Store, and will be stocked at other retailers later this week.

Like its predecessor, Apple sells these devices in one and four-packs for £29 and £99, respectively. You'll need an iPhone that's compatible with iOS 26 or later, or iPad with iPadOS 26 or later, to use the new AirTag.