Where to put a tracker: wallet, luggage, keys, bike, car

Trackers are cheap enough that the interesting question is no longer whether to have one but where to put them. Signal, format and the odds of actually losing the thing all vary considerably by location.

Wallet: the best case

The wallet is the single highest-value placement, because it is the item most frequently set down on surfaces outside your home and the one whose loss costs the most time.

Format is the constraint. A coin-shaped tracker in a wallet creates a bulge and defeats the point of a slim one. A card-format tracker sits in a slot and disappears - the format argument in full is in AirTag vs tracker card. If you want the pairing sorted in one go, the wallet and tracker bundle is exactly that combination.

Put it in a middle slot rather than an outer one, where a card in front shields it slightly from bending.

Keys: high value, easy fit

Keys are lost about as often as wallets and bulk barely matters on a key ring, so this is where a coin-shaped tracker makes sense. Attach it to the outer loop of a key organizer rather than burying it in the stack.

One note: keys are frequently lost inside the house, which is the case where the speaker matters far more than the map. Check that whatever you buy has one.

Checked luggage: place it carefully

Inside the case, not on the outside where a handler can knock it off. Choose an outer pocket or the top of the packed contents rather than the middle of a dense load, since clothing and especially metal-framed cases attenuate a weak Bluetooth signal.

Some airlines now accept passenger tracker data as a starting point for a trace, which changes the baggage-desk conversation considerably - see the first 24 hours. Pair it with a visible tag so the bag is identifiable as well as locatable, which is the argument in spotting your suitcase.

Bike: worth it, with limits

Hide it properly - under a saddle, inside a bar end, in a seat tube - and be realistic about what it does. A bike thief's phone will be told there is an unknown tracker travelling with them, for the reasons in anti-stalking alerts. A tracker helps most with a bike moved by a council clearance or left somewhere you forgot, and is unreliable against a competent thief.

Car: mixed value

Useful for finding a car in an airport car park or a large city, which is a genuine and frequent annoyance. Less useful for theft, for the same reason as the bike. Metal bodywork also weakens the signal, so avoid the boot floor and prefer the glovebox or a door pocket.

Two places not to put one

Anything belonging to another adult, without telling them. Beyond the obvious ethical problem, the alerts are designed specifically to surface this, so it will be discovered.

Directly on a wireless charging pad. A tracker sandwiched between a phone and a pad blocks the field and can heat up, which is the same failure described in charging through a case, card or wallet.

Where to start

If you buy one tracker, put it in the wallet. If you buy two, keys second. Luggage is third and seasonal. Everything after that is optimisation, and the habits in how to stop losing your wallet will still do more work than the fourth tracker does.