Apple has recently introduced its AirTag, a personal digital tracker that uses both Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and Bluetooth to help you locate lost items. Now it appears that Oppo also has a similar Ultra-Wideband enabled tracker in the works but it comes with one added feature which can help in terms of sustainability.
Most Ultra-Wideband and Bluetooth trackers including the Galaxy Smart Tag+ and Apple AirTag use a typical CR2032 coin battery. This battery is rated to last for about a year with typical use and it is user-replaceable.
Based on recent leaked photos of the Oppo smart tracker, it comes with a round shape similar to the AirTag but it gets a USB-C port at the sides. This is an indication that the Oppo tracker uses a rechargeable battery which helps to reduce waste in the long run. As shown above, the tracker also uses Ultra Wideband which should provide better tracking with distance and direction information.
So far there’s no pricing and availability details just yet. It is worth pointing out that the effectiveness of the tag tracking would greatly depend on Oppo’s network size.
For example, Apple’s AirTag relies on the Find My feature which taps on almost a billion Apple devices that can anonymously help relay the signal of the tracker back to the owner. Samsung also uses a similar system that’s called Galaxy Find Network. Apple’s AirTag is priced at RM149 per tag while the Galaxy Smart Tag (Bluetooth version) is priced at RM99 for one or RM159 for two pieces. The Galaxy Smart Tag+ with UWB is not available in Malaysia at the moment.
Would you buy a digital tracker with UWB? If you do, what will tag it to? Let us know in the comments below.
