¬ just serendipity 🍀 (not just serendipity)

Problem statement: somehow I messed up my AirTag. It wasn’t being updated any longer. “Last seen NN days ago”.

So I deleted it from my Apple account. It’s the universal way to fix issues, right?

So far so good.

However, I couldn’t pair it up again. It wouldn’t work no matter how many times I tried to remove its battery, nor how many times I’d swap its battery for another one. I gave up for a couple of days (weeks?).

Then I realized that my iPhone kept notifying me that an AirTag had been following me. Huh?! I thought it was referring to the AirTag of the friends I was travelling with.

That kept occurring even after the trip was over. Then I had a sudden realization: duh, it’s my own AirTag. And yet, it’s not showing up in “Find My”. Somehow it got stuck in a odd state that iOS was thinking it was someone else’s AirTag.

At that point I got an epiphany: is it possible to “hard reset” it, just like a router? It turns out the answer is yes:

Here’s how to reset your AirTag:

1. Press down on the polished stainless steel battery cover of your AirTag and rotate counterclockwise until the cover stops rotating.

2. Remove the cover and the battery.*

3. Replace the battery.

4. Press down on the battery until you hear a sound. This sound means that the battery is connected.

5. When the sound finishes, repeat the process four more times, removing and replacing the battery, then pressing down on the battery until you hear a sound. You should hear a sound each time you press on the battery, for a total of five sounds. The fifth sound is different from the previous four. This indicates that the AirTag is now ready to pair.

6. Replace the cover by aligning the three tabs on the cover with the three slots on your AirTag.

7. Press down on the cover.

8. Rotate the cover clockwise until it stops rotating.

Upon following the above procedure, the fifth time yielded a different sound. Then, almost immediately, my iPhone prompted me to connect to it.

The more you learn.