Comment by swe_dima
1 day ago
my parents live in Russia and my grandma has alzheimer's, so as a present "for her" I bought an airtag - so in case my mom loses grandma in a crowd she can be found.
Little did I know, GPS jammers around the city make my grandma appear 50km away.
Not Apple's fault of course.
AirTag itself doesn't have GPS, of course. It depends on the devices that communicate with the AirTag having precise location. IF you have a phone in Russia, are your maps apps off by 50km these days?
I would assume the inaccuracy is due to the various phones that pick up the airtag pings GPS being jammed, reporting AirTags nowhere near where they actually are.
Makes sense. Would be pretty cool if Apple could find a way to correct GPS jamming using accelerometers and some logic. If your GPS location jump 50 kilometers in 2 minutes, ignore GPS and use cell tower + accelerometer. Maybe create some sort of mesh network, using other phones and nearby SSIDs to get a makeshift location positioning.
That does come with the risk of Tim Cook falling out of a window.
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The AirTag does not have a GPS receiver. When anyone's iPhone discovers the tag, it sends their device's location to Apple servers with "by the way, this AirTag is in range." If cellular location is inaccurate then good luck.
iPhone SE for next gift? it can snap back to correct location when the jammers are off or the phone infers location from tower etc
Wait what
Russia does pretty widespread GPS jamming and spoofing both in their country as well as across the Baltics and Nordics (and others). If a phone is receiving bad GPS data when it reports sensing the tag, the tag location will reflect that bad GPS data and not reality.
Shouldn't most comodity GPS receivers also be GLONASS compatible (I get that Galileo is more niche and might not be included).
Does the Sensor Apple uses not use GLONASS in Russia? Or is it cheapo Android Phones picking up the tag and then sending GPS coords into cloud?
edit: Nvm, I might be dumb, I guess unless your jamming includes all commodity GNSS it's pretty useless.
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Thanks for explanation. I had absolutely no awareness GPS jamming was a thing, let alone at scale.
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