Back in 2021, Apple decided to open up its Find My ecosystem to other companies. As long as they met a number of stringent standards, they could make devices that connected to and used that network, much like an iPhone, MacBook, or AirTag does.
Third-party manufacturers quickly jumped on board, and soon a whole range of new trackers hit the market. Most of the first ones looked and felt like carbon copies of the AirTag, but later, all kinds of different shapes and sizes became available.
UGreen is one of my favorite accessory makers, but until now, I had mainly used its chargers and cables. The company’s trackers were new to me when they offered to send one out, but since I had owned an AirTag for several years, I was curious to see how, if at all, it would differ.
Note that UGreen makes several different trackers: this one is the Smart Finder, model number CM816.
What’s in the box?
Smart Finder, stickers, lanyard, and battery replacement tool.
From the product images on the website and the front of the box, I expected the Smart Finder to be larger than it is. It’s larger than an AirTag, but not by much: a 1.4″ (36mm) square compared to a 1.3″ (32mm) circle.
Besides the tag itself, inside the box there’s a small pile of unnecessary safety information, instructions in half a dozen languages, some cute stickers, a lanyard for attaching it to other items, and a tool that’s meant to help replace the battery but looks a lot like a SIM card ejector.
There’s not much to say about the tag itself: it has a notch on one side for attaching a keyring or that lanyard, a small button and indicator light on the front, and technical specifications printed on the back.
The inclusion of the notch and lanyard is one of the differentiators between the Smart Finder and an AirTag. With the Apple version, you have to buy a separate holder to attach it to your keyring or anything else. With the Smart Finder, it’s built in.
Pushing that SIM ejector-style tool into the small hole under the notch opens the battery cover: inside is a flat CR2032 battery, which UGreen says can last up to 2 years.
I’m skeptical of that claim, since I haven’t seen any other trackers using the same battery last more than a year, but we’ll see how it goes.
It’s a small thing, but I have to say I like the little pack of stickers. They have stylized images of things like a key, bike, backpack, and luggage, so you can easily identify which is which if you have multiple Smart Finders in use.
Setup and Use
Maybe now I won’t lose my car keys…
Setup is about as simple as it gets, at least when you’re using a third-party product in the Apple ecosystem. Pulling the plastic tab out of the tracker turns it on: it’s immediately in pairing mode.
I just opened the Find My app on an iPhone 16, added an “Other” type of device, and it was detected instantly. If, say, you get distracted talking to your partner and forget to add the tracker within five minutes, holding the button for two seconds puts it back in pairing mode and lets you try again. Ask me how I know.
Once paired, the Smart Finder worked just like the AirTag I already have. The Find My app shows its last known location, which you can get directions to (using Apple Maps only).
You can make it beep loudly to help track it down, and it works well: even buried under a couch pillow, I could hear the sound from across the room.
I had read reports that some third-party trackers don’t properly use the global Find My network—in other words, they can’t use other people’s passing Apple devices to report their location. Thankfully, that’s not the case here.
When I left all the Apple devices at home and took the Smart Finder with me to the shops, my partner could still see its location in her Find My app, updating almost in real-time as I walked along a busy street (probably) full of iPhones.
You can also receive an alert whenever you and the tracker get separated, which I tested by dropping it on the kitchen table and then going for a walk. Sure enough, when I was a few blocks from home, a Find My notification appeared to let me know about it.
Those two features (alerting when the tracker is somewhere I’m not, and being able to see its location whenever it’s near another Apple device) are the main ways I’ve used my AirTag in the past, especially when traveling with checked baggage. It’s probably how I’ll use the Smart Finder going forward as well.
Because Apple has decided not to allow third-party tracker makers to use the Ultra Wideband chip in the iPhone, however, one thing you don’t get is Precision Finding.
This is the feature that gives exact distance and directions once you’re within a few feet of the AirTag or other Apple device you’re looking for. Depending on how and where you use or lose your AirTag, that may or may not be an issue for you.
Smart Finder Internals
The only other thing worth mentioning is the battery replacement process. Maybe I’m just clumsy, but I found it more difficult than expected: eventually, I had to push the removal tool into the hole with my thumb while prying open the cover with my other hand.
Obviously, it’s not something you’ll do very often, but still, it should really be a little easier.
Should You Buy This Instead of an AirTag?
For most people, the decision about whether to buy an AirTag or a Smart Finder (or indeed, any third-party tracker using the Find My network) comes down to two things: what you’ll use it for, and how much it costs.
If you’re someone who frequently loses your keys or other small items you can attach a tracker to, you’ll probably want an AirTag.
Precision Finding makes it faster and easier to locate items like this when their beeping sound is muffled (under the couch, say, or in a jacket pocket), so if you’ll use that feature regularly, it’s only available on the AirTag.
If you plan to attach the tracker to something larger, though, it’s a different story. Backpacks, travel bags, pets, cars—if you can see it from across the room, having the location within a few feet is great.
Then, the Smart Finder works just as well as an AirTag, at a much lower price. As I write this, there’s a coupon on Amazon that brings the cost to under half that of the Apple version, and that’s before you factor in the cost of a holder for the AirTag if you need one.
For something that meets most people’s needs just as well, that’s a pretty hard deal to argue with. If you’re one of those people, put the Smart Finder on your wish list.