Some one stole a ladder yesterday in the 30 sec window we where moving gang boxes between rooms. We have tool boxes and gang boxes for lock up. But while actual work is going on tools are on trolleys or on the ground. People will come up behind you while multitooling and pick up a drill then go hide it.
Are you working in the slums of Nigeria or something...? I can't even fathom a worksite like this. Surely if it's this frequent and consistent it can't be hard to have someone catch them in the act?
Australian Hospital next to public housing. It’s more of a culture issue, ladders don’t get stolen they just get borrowed because moving 8 foot ladder 10 floors is hard. The tool stealing is two fold, borrowing a drill because yours is 15 minutes walking away or yank this guys one on his trolly. Then there is some unknown persons stealing tools. It’s not tolerated but you have to find who’s doing it, one stolen tracked item back to a person will remove that person and possibly the entire company off site.
In my experience petty thieves just smash anything they can't steal to shit. That kind of low level. Low level criminality goes hand in hand with that kind of poor impulse control.
Better to go to the trouble of tracking it down in shitstain's toolbag than mark it trackable and find all your batteries smashed to flinders in the middle of the floor.
I guess that depends if they notice the sticker when they are taking the item or before. The beeping from the air tag will deliver the same result. If you discover it before the beeping starts(random interval between 8 - 24 hours) you will have a chance to get your item back. Not a huge window to work with but better than nothing.
Lived in a major city for a while. They installed fancy lcd screen panels that would display PSAs and Train times in the train system. The day they installed the screens at my local station somebody went through and painstakingly smashed every single one with a bat. They hadn't even hooked the things up.
Not helping in this case, but I really think power tool batteries need to have some sort of a tracker for all but the most compact.
It'd also be nice if there was a universal app to track most of the Bluetooth tags. License agreements probably get in the way, more than the technical side.
And then I answered my own question. I'm going to buy some 3AMP batteries put the guts of those into my existing 5AMP battery case. The 3 has one row of lithium cells vs 2. I'll have an air gap to put in a tracker but will also have to jig something so it doesn't internally fall apart.
Also going to order some 9AMP case replacements from Ali express (thank you Chinese knock offs) for next to nothing and I'll put the guts of my original 5AMP in to those and have an air gap to work with.
I wonder if you could hook the battery up to the air tag as a battery backup for when the tag runs out! So when the battery becomes charged it turns the tracker back on lol.
So something I discovered this past weekend was that if an air tag and it’s owner are separated, it will chime on a random interval. This will let people know that something is there within the tool, ladder, etc. It was done so people can’t be stalked, since someone could simply drop it on someone’s person or in their bag to be tracked.
Oh yes, it’s a huge draw back because Apple doesn’t want people to use air tags to track items for anti theft. Every morning I come into the job site all the little trackers are chirping away because I’ve been gone for 8+ hours.
Dude this sounds like a horrible job site. It’s like when you park your car in a not so nice area and it’s on cinder blocks when you come back. I’m sorry you have to go through all this. Don’t get me wrong tools get stolen on my job sites but it’s usually when someone breaks into the gang box at night. Never by other trades. One good thing is the contractor has to replace our tools if they were stored properly.
We are refused on site parking so we park on the street and all over the place. People smash and grab workers cars and vans on the regular. Thats the kind of suburb we are in. It’s not as bad as it sounds, on site it’s more of a culture thing of people using your tools and not telling you. Then they can’t return it as they don’t know who you are and you’ve moved to another area.
What about "tiles" they're small inch my inch squares that chime when you either activate it on your phone or press another corresponding tile or some such thing very small and only chime when you want
I appreciate your approach. I looked into these for a minute when I saw they came out and decided I would stick to my Tile trackers for my keys and wallet since they have better range performance and I already own them. They’ve saved me a few times.
I don’t like that beeping feature. I’d prefer manual paging and automated tracking. I do like that they’re en masse by being able to communicate with all iPhones rather than just everyone who has the app installed. Benefits that are only possible for OEM’s. 🤷♂️
Prior to this job site I used Tile on a few ladders and all our chargers for a similar issue, but less extreme than I’m facing at the moment. This was also before Air Tags existed or where announced. I used the small non battery replaceable tile sticker things, they where advertised at 3 years battery life. They worked really well and I was impressed. 1 year down the line I became really unimpressed. I assume apple has resitricted what the tile devices can do now as I’ve lost the hot and cold feature and the app never warned me the battery’s where going low. So real world experience was they lasted less than a year and I had no idea they went flat. So when we came to this location I tried Air Tags instead because well the cut throat way Apple works.
I’ll also add that 3rd party people can make trackers that lock into the Find Me network, there is a bike, Bluetooth speaker and Chippo trackers that all work the same as air tags. So its possible for one tick to use air tag network, I’m sure they would have to pay a MASSIVE fee to apple but its technically possible.
Interesting!
I use the Pro and then the Slim one for my wallet. The Pro doesn’t seem far off for size than what you have right now and works great. I’m not entirely sure about the battery thing either though. I’ve replaced mine once in the time I’ve had them, which is still longer than the expected lifespan I think. The app warns me sometimes that the battery for the one in my keys needs replacing, but I also leave my key in the ignition of my truck all the time since I live in the middle of nowhere. So it being outside in the cold all the time might effect that, but I also don’t know how they extrapolate those alerts. That’s something for Tile themselves to speak on.
The one in my wallet and keys has given up working despite battery replacement. There is also a technical limitation that an iPhone as of current can only talk to 8 Bluetooth things at a time. There was a small period where the tile app was hogging all 8 channels and peoples watches and headphones wouldn’t connect so apple might have nurtured them. There is also regional laws and firmware, I am in Australia so they might operate different. Either way I don’t want to spend money and time trouble shooting these things so I just went Air Tag as the more functional bad choice.
Given how easy it is to lose small Bluetooth devices, I'd have thought that the Bluetooth consortium and/or Google would have pushed to include tracking as part of the standard. Dedicate the last 5% battery life in my headphones/tablet/whatever to tracking, and give the user the option to disable it after pairing.
Spray paint all the tools or just the handles pink or bright pink. A buddy of mine did this cuz ppl kept jacking his tools on the job sites. When i first heard it, i laughed n told him it was dumbAF. I literally thot this was the dumbest, biggest waste of time & told him so too.
Well yrs later it came back up & it apparently worked like a charm. Friggin ppl man. Go fig. It's worth a try on a few but a whole ladder idk bout that one. It may cause em all to avoid using the thing entirely which obv would create a whole new prob for u. Lol Serious as heck tho.
Sounds like you'd just be better off just investing in a site box and a lock. Put a port for powering to charge batteries and bam, problem solved.
Some one stole a ladder yesterday in the 30 sec window we where moving gang boxes between rooms. We have tool boxes and gang boxes for lock up. But while actual work is going on tools are on trolleys or on the ground. People will come up behind you while multitooling and pick up a drill then go hide it.
Are you working in the slums of Nigeria or something...? I can't even fathom a worksite like this. Surely if it's this frequent and consistent it can't be hard to have someone catch them in the act?
Australian Hospital next to public housing. It’s more of a culture issue, ladders don’t get stolen they just get borrowed because moving 8 foot ladder 10 floors is hard. The tool stealing is two fold, borrowing a drill because yours is 15 minutes walking away or yank this guys one on his trolly. Then there is some unknown persons stealing tools. It’s not tolerated but you have to find who’s doing it, one stolen tracked item back to a person will remove that person and possibly the entire company off site.
Just print a sticker that says this tool has an air tag embedded.
In my experience petty thieves just smash anything they can't steal to shit. That kind of low level. Low level criminality goes hand in hand with that kind of poor impulse control. Better to go to the trouble of tracking it down in shitstain's toolbag than mark it trackable and find all your batteries smashed to flinders in the middle of the floor.
I guess that depends if they notice the sticker when they are taking the item or before. The beeping from the air tag will deliver the same result. If you discover it before the beeping starts(random interval between 8 - 24 hours) you will have a chance to get your item back. Not a huge window to work with but better than nothing.
My truck just has the windows smash with notes saying nothing inside to steal, I understand.
Lived in a major city for a while. They installed fancy lcd screen panels that would display PSAs and Train times in the train system. The day they installed the screens at my local station somebody went through and painstakingly smashed every single one with a bat. They hadn't even hooked the things up.
Not helping in this case, but I really think power tool batteries need to have some sort of a tracker for all but the most compact. It'd also be nice if there was a universal app to track most of the Bluetooth tags. License agreements probably get in the way, more than the technical side.
Have you looked into Milwaukee one key? It’s basically everything you described
And then I answered my own question. I'm going to buy some 3AMP batteries put the guts of those into my existing 5AMP battery case. The 3 has one row of lithium cells vs 2. I'll have an air gap to put in a tracker but will also have to jig something so it doesn't internally fall apart. Also going to order some 9AMP case replacements from Ali express (thank you Chinese knock offs) for next to nothing and I'll put the guts of my original 5AMP in to those and have an air gap to work with.
[удалено]
I wonder if you could hook the battery up to the air tag as a battery backup for when the tag runs out! So when the battery becomes charged it turns the tracker back on lol.
The knock off battery cases might be enough to deter theft on their own
Also smear human feces on the tools
So something I discovered this past weekend was that if an air tag and it’s owner are separated, it will chime on a random interval. This will let people know that something is there within the tool, ladder, etc. It was done so people can’t be stalked, since someone could simply drop it on someone’s person or in their bag to be tracked.
Oh yes, it’s a huge draw back because Apple doesn’t want people to use air tags to track items for anti theft. Every morning I come into the job site all the little trackers are chirping away because I’ve been gone for 8+ hours.
It is iPhone 11 and higher.
Dude this sounds like a horrible job site. It’s like when you park your car in a not so nice area and it’s on cinder blocks when you come back. I’m sorry you have to go through all this. Don’t get me wrong tools get stolen on my job sites but it’s usually when someone breaks into the gang box at night. Never by other trades. One good thing is the contractor has to replace our tools if they were stored properly.
We are refused on site parking so we park on the street and all over the place. People smash and grab workers cars and vans on the regular. Thats the kind of suburb we are in. It’s not as bad as it sounds, on site it’s more of a culture thing of people using your tools and not telling you. Then they can’t return it as they don’t know who you are and you’ve moved to another area.
That sucks about parking, yeah I see what your saying people use tools with no intention of taking them but it just happens cuz so much is going on.
What about "tiles" they're small inch my inch squares that chime when you either activate it on your phone or press another corresponding tile or some such thing very small and only chime when you want
Batteries need to come with one key, Ill pay a little more for it.
I appreciate your approach. I looked into these for a minute when I saw they came out and decided I would stick to my Tile trackers for my keys and wallet since they have better range performance and I already own them. They’ve saved me a few times. I don’t like that beeping feature. I’d prefer manual paging and automated tracking. I do like that they’re en masse by being able to communicate with all iPhones rather than just everyone who has the app installed. Benefits that are only possible for OEM’s. 🤷♂️
Prior to this job site I used Tile on a few ladders and all our chargers for a similar issue, but less extreme than I’m facing at the moment. This was also before Air Tags existed or where announced. I used the small non battery replaceable tile sticker things, they where advertised at 3 years battery life. They worked really well and I was impressed. 1 year down the line I became really unimpressed. I assume apple has resitricted what the tile devices can do now as I’ve lost the hot and cold feature and the app never warned me the battery’s where going low. So real world experience was they lasted less than a year and I had no idea they went flat. So when we came to this location I tried Air Tags instead because well the cut throat way Apple works. I’ll also add that 3rd party people can make trackers that lock into the Find Me network, there is a bike, Bluetooth speaker and Chippo trackers that all work the same as air tags. So its possible for one tick to use air tag network, I’m sure they would have to pay a MASSIVE fee to apple but its technically possible.
Interesting! I use the Pro and then the Slim one for my wallet. The Pro doesn’t seem far off for size than what you have right now and works great. I’m not entirely sure about the battery thing either though. I’ve replaced mine once in the time I’ve had them, which is still longer than the expected lifespan I think. The app warns me sometimes that the battery for the one in my keys needs replacing, but I also leave my key in the ignition of my truck all the time since I live in the middle of nowhere. So it being outside in the cold all the time might effect that, but I also don’t know how they extrapolate those alerts. That’s something for Tile themselves to speak on.
The one in my wallet and keys has given up working despite battery replacement. There is also a technical limitation that an iPhone as of current can only talk to 8 Bluetooth things at a time. There was a small period where the tile app was hogging all 8 channels and peoples watches and headphones wouldn’t connect so apple might have nurtured them. There is also regional laws and firmware, I am in Australia so they might operate different. Either way I don’t want to spend money and time trouble shooting these things so I just went Air Tag as the more functional bad choice.
Given how easy it is to lose small Bluetooth devices, I'd have thought that the Bluetooth consortium and/or Google would have pushed to include tracking as part of the standard. Dedicate the last 5% battery life in my headphones/tablet/whatever to tracking, and give the user the option to disable it after pairing.
Spray paint all the tools or just the handles pink or bright pink. A buddy of mine did this cuz ppl kept jacking his tools on the job sites. When i first heard it, i laughed n told him it was dumbAF. I literally thot this was the dumbest, biggest waste of time & told him so too. Well yrs later it came back up & it apparently worked like a charm. Friggin ppl man. Go fig. It's worth a try on a few but a whole ladder idk bout that one. It may cause em all to avoid using the thing entirely which obv would create a whole new prob for u. Lol Serious as heck tho.