Lasts up to ten years: Extra battery for Apple AirTag
A US accessory manufacturer wants to make battery changes for the AirTag superfluous with its new device. The TimeCapsule costs 20 US dollars.
The TimeCapsule for the Apple AirTag when unscrewed.
(Image: ElevationLab)
The US company Elevationlab has presented a rather unusual accessory for the AirTags. With the case-sized TimeCapsule, owners of the small Apple devices can drastically increase the battery life. The manufacturer promises that an AirTag will last up to ten years without having to change the battery.
The TimeCapsule is opened to insert the AirTag and the two AA batteries before use and is said to be completely waterproof when closed. Only the upper half of the AirTag with the technology is placed on a corresponding interface, which is similar to a CR2032 battery. The metal underside is not required. The manufacturer promises that the AA batteries increase the energy capacity by a factor of 14. The TimeCapsule costs 20 US dollars. It remains to be seen whether the AA batteries will actually hold their charge for that long.
Disadvantage of the accessory
The disadvantage of the accessory solution is that an AirTag requires considerably more space. Anyone using it with a TimeCapsule in a motorhome or boat, for example, as Elevationlab mentions as an example, will certainly be able to get over this. Depending on the space available, the situation is very different in a bag – For some uses, the device is no longer recommended with the extension.
The motivation for the product is said to be a stolen camera bag. When the inventor of the TimeCapsule wanted to locate the AirTag in the bag, he discovered that the battery, which lasts an average of one year, had been empty for three months and he had forgotten to replace it. The TimeCapsule is supposed to solve the problem, although the question arises as to whether the problem is not just being postponed. At the very least, it should not be due to too few warnings that people forget to change the battery in an AirTag, because it warns them repeatedly and very forcefully. In the final stage of a battery, the functions are even reduced.
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A small side note: The name of the accessory reminds long-time Apple users of the Time Capsule, an Apple device that was discontinued years ago and served as a network hard disk storage for storing Time Machine backups of the Mac, for example.
(mki)
