Practical use of Chipolo Bluetooth trackers for the Google Find My Device service

It’s May 27, and as Chipolo and Pebblebee told us, their Google-compatible Airtag alternatives are shipping today. The two Chipolo Bluetooth trackers were the first to arrive at my home today, so I’ll focus on them in this hands-on section, but you can check out our guide to learn more about the differences between Chipolo and Pebblebee trackers. They should both behave very similarly.

Also remember that this is a very quick and raw first impression from setup to available options. I haven’t had time to “lose” these trackers in the wild yet and try to find them. I’ll review them in detail later and compare them to Pebblebee trackers, Apple’s Airtags, and Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag 2.

With that in mind, let’s focus on two Chipolo trackers. Here’s a quick reminder of their specifications:

First, there’s ONE Point, a round locator with a removable CR2032 coin cell battery and a keyhole so you can attach it to your keys or bag, for example.

Then there’s CARD Point, a thinner credit card-shaped tracker that fits easily into your wallet. This one doesn’t have a replaceable battery, but Chipolo has a 50% discount on replacements if you recycle it after the two-year expected battery life. I’m not a huge fan of this – Pebblebee’s rechargeable trackers have a better environmental approach – but Chipolo decided to go this route to keep these trackers slim.

At first glance, both models look exactly like Apple and Chipolo’s standalone Bluetooth trackers. The only difference is that the Google-compatible ones are only white. Those that work with the Apple network are only available in black, while standalone trackers, which are cross-platform but only work with the Chipolo app, are available in six colors (white, black, yellow, red, green and blue).

However, if you look closely, when you remove the battery cover, you will find “Chipolo CARD Point” written on the back of the card and “Chipolo ONE Point” inside the circular tracker. This should help you tell them apart if you’re buying second-hand or if you have any doubts.

Connecting these two trackers to my Pixel phones was very quick and easy. I just pressed the button (in the middle of the circular tracker, in the lower left corner of the card) and I heard a beep and a pop-up appeared on my phone. This is similar to the quick pairing notification that appears when you try to connect a new pair of Bluetooth headphones to your Android phone for the first time.

Then follow a simple process. I read the disclaimer, added the tracker to the Find My Device app, and joined the Find My Device network using my phone since the official rollout hadn’t arrived yet – by the way, that did the trick; my phone is now part of the network. Then trackers appeared in the app for me. For everything to work properly, you may need to grant the app location access and nearby permission.

In the Find My Device app, both CARD Point and ONE Point show the same options. From the list I can quickly check whether trackers are near me or not. Then when I tap it, I get the last known location on the map, the battery level, and two options to play a sound or share the device.

Chipolo chose a sound reminiscent of a telephone ringtone that is high-pitched and loud enough to be heard from several meters away without being too shrill or irritating. This should come in handy when the tracker is hidden.

There’s also a locator nearby that lets me know if I’m getting closer or further away from the tracker. Since these trackers don’t have an ultra-wideband chip, there’s no direction finding capability like with Apple’s AirTag and Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag 2. This seems like a wasted opportunity and I hope future trackers from other brands will have this feature.

I haven’t set up sharing yet, but it should come in handy for keys and items I share with my husband. This way we can find them if they are lost and use them without receiving notifications about unknown trackers.

Other options include renaming the tracker, assigning it a category (bag, bike, camera, headphones, keys, phone, tablet, wallet, and more), and removing it from your account so you can pair it with another account.

So far I have managed to add both tags to my account and they have appeared on all my Android phones. However, to track them on another phone, the app asked me to enter the PIN from the phone I set it up on, although this appears to be a one-time verification. This shouldn’t be a problem for most users who don’t change phones very often, but for phone reviewers like me it will be a bit annoying. I definitely appreciate the added layer of security though, and the fact that it’s one-time use makes it much less of a hassle.

It’s currently raining outside, so I’m looking for two trackers around my small apartment and walking around trying to test the Bluetooth range (spoiler: enough to cover my 505 square foot or 47 square meter apartment) and ringer volume. Overall, they seem to get the job done in this limited setting.

But the real test will come later, when I get out and can use them in my daily life. Will they be reliable? Will they be easy to find if they get lost? Is Google’s Find My Network already strong enough, or do more phones need to join? How reliable are their unknown tracker alerts on Android and iOS? All questions I will try to answer in my longer review and comparison test.