Tomorrow, Apple Inc. is hosting its “Spring Loaded” 2021 event where the long-rumoured AirTags could finally be made public. While waiting for that, Samsung — which earlier on rolled out a competing SmartThings Find service and two products — touted how many widgets it has in-network and two new features.
In October of 2020, Samsung launched the SmartThings Find service as a means of locating Galaxy phones, tablets, watches, and earbuds via Bluetooth Low Energy and UWB (ultra-wideband).
The current network has over 70 million “helper” devices. This is 10% of the 700 million Galaxy users that are eligible to participate. Samsung has said that this is one of the fastest-growing location services in the world. As a way to boost competition, last week Apple also released its “Find My network” service to third-party products where it touted “hundreds of millions” of network devices.
Samsung has also confirmed that two new features will roll out soon. The first, “Unknown Tag Search” will help you detect and list Galaxy SmartTags (second) that don’t belong to you but are moving along with you. This feature could be a big success for Samsung, as it provides an easy way to ensure nobody is tracking you with a tiny SmartTag which they may have slipped into your backpack, purse, coat pocket, etc.
Apart from this, there is the new Bixby integration where app users can do a hands-free search for named SmartTags. These two features will be released next week and will require an update of the SmartThings application.
Last week, Samsung officially rolled out the $39 Galaxy SmartTag+ with UWB. This allows for a more precise location and an AR viewfinder. It will improve the Bluetooth-only $29 SmartTag, with both released this January together with the Galaxy S21 series.
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