The battle of connected beacons has begun. Apple has its Airtags and Samsung its SmartTag+. The Korean giant's gadget is supposed to make your life easier by making it easier to find your misplaced items. Does it keep its promises? What is it worth compared to Apple's solution? That's what we're going to see.
It's not just on smartphones that Apple and Samsung compete. The now inevitable connected objects that synchronize with our mobiles are also one of the battlefields on which the two giants clash. The Galaxy SmartTag+ is the perfect illustration of this.
Find the Samsung Galaxy SmartTag+ at €39.99Released a little before AirTags, these SmartTag+ work exactly the same way as Apple tags. Once connected to your phone, they will help you find your keys or your lost wallet at home, thanks to the use of ultra wideband technology which allows a very precise location, to the nearest ten centimeters.
The verdict
6/10Galaxy SmartTag+There are no offers at the moment
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At the end of the day, Samsung's SmartTags do what they're supposed to do, which is to help you find a pair of keys or a wallet that you may have misplaced at home. As long as you have a compatible mobile, you can let yourself be guided by the SmartThings application, which is certainly a bit messy, but which offers a good degree of precision when it comes to locating your personal belongings. Unfortunately, the usefulness of the tag is limited to this specific use. As soon as the accessory is no longer within range of your phone, it will be very difficult to find it, since the network of Samsung phones acting as a relay beacon is almost non-existent. It is nevertheless the only beacon of this type to Be compatible with Samsung devices. If you're clueless and have a relatively recent Samsung smartphone in your possession, this is probably a device that can be useful to you.The SmartTag+ is only compatible with the latest Samsung devices
Source: Photo Corentin Béchade for Numerama
To take full advantage of SmartTag+, you will absolutely need a Samsung mobile with a UWB chip. The Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Galaxy S21+, Galaxy S21 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold 2 are therefore compatible. The others will have to make do with the Bluetooth connection.The network issue
On the other hand, the solution of Samsung differs from that of Apple on a fundamental point: that of the network. Where at Apple, all iOS devices automatically serve as a relay beacon to communicate the position of an AirTag to its owner, at Samsung the network is much, much less dense.
This difference is simply explained by the fact that Samsung mobiles are not automatically enrolled in the SmartThings Find program, which serves as the backbone of the manufacturer's lost and found network. Each Samsung smartphone owner must register for the program to transform their smartphone into a relay beacon.
As a result, mobiles in circulation with the option activated are very rare and you should not rely too much on the help of the community to find your lost keys during a drunken evening. For this test, I hid a beacon in the street near my house to see if a phone would relay its position. After a day of waiting, no alert was sent.
Some will see this as a flaw that prevents the tag from being as useful as an AirTag. Others will see it as an assurance that a SmartTag cannot be used to track someone without their knowledge. Samsung, for its part, does not put too much emphasis on this community feature, preferring to focus on the aspect of locating misplaced objects at home.
Less discreet than an AirTag
The SmartTag+ is definitely bulkier than Apple's AirTags. Samsung has opted for a squarer and more massive design for its beacons. But there are good reasons for that. First, Samsung's gadget has a ring that makes it easy to hook the tag to a pair of keys, unlike AirTags which require you to purchase an accessory to accomplish the same purpose.
The SmartTag+ (left) facing the AirTag (right)
Source: Photo Corentin Béchade for Numerama
The tag also has a clickable button (which we will come back to) and a traditional speaker mechanism (unlike the AirTag which actually uses the entire body of the accessory to produce sound). These technical choices mean that the SmartTag+ is larger than an AirTag.
A somewhat laborious installation
If there's one aspect where Apple's AirTags shine, it's their ease of use. By holding a beacon close to your iPhone, you can pair it in a few clicks and then forget about it until you need it. On the SmartTag side, it's another matter.
To be operational, the beacons must connect to Samsung's SmartThings application, which is not preinstalled on all of the manufacturer's smartphones. You will also need to sign in to your Samsung account or create one if you haven't already.
An overview of the SmartThings app which is used to locate its beacons
Source: Screenshot
In absolute terms, none of this is too complicated, but the pairing process could be simplified. Since the SmartThings application is also designed primarily for home automation, your beacon will be listed next to any connected light bulbs or Samsung televisions. We would have liked a slightly more minimalist interface, just to see more clearly.
Accurate, but unstable connection
That said, once the beacon is paired, use is relatively simple. The Samsung application allows in two or three clicks to launch the search for a SmartTag or to make it ring. Thereupon Samsung's beacon doesn't have much to complain about, the basic features are there and they work well.
At Apple as at Samsung, we offer the possibility of ringing the beacons
Source: Photo Corentin Béchade for Numerama
Samsung uses augmented reality to give you a clear idea of where your lost items are. The application will use the camera and overlay arrows and scatter plots to guide you in your search. This makes it a little easier to find your objects than with an Airtag, since the indications at Samsung are more precise (in particular concerning the elevation of an object).
Location tools from Samsung (left) and Apple (right)
Source: Photo Corentin Béchade for Numerama
On the other hand, the connection between the SmartTag and the phone is not always the most stable and it will sometimes be necessary to shake your phone a little for the two devices to be able to communicate again. AirTags and iPhones maintain a more stable connection with each other.
Finally, the SmartTag+ can ring with a generous volume, which greatly facilitates searches. The maximum volume of SmartTag+ is not much higher than that of AirTags, but Samsung's tag maintains a constant volume level where AirTags fluctuate.
The bonus button
As we mentioned earlier, the SmartTag+ have an almost invisible clickable button in the center of the tag. The latter can be assigned to a whole host of home automation shortcuts, such as turning on the lights or turning off the TV, for example (provided that you have connected your phone to your home automation services).
The discernible circle on the device is actually a customizable clickable button
Source: Photo Corentin Béchade for Numerama
A long press will also allow you to send a personalized notification to one of your contacts. Convenient if you want to discreetly send an alert to someone, when you feel in danger outside for example. Unfortunately, again the functionality is linked to the Samsung account and you will only be able to send alerts to people who also have one.
Samsung's idea of adding a button to its beacon is clever, but its usefulness is limited unless one is fully versed in the manufacturer's ecosystem.
The verdict
6/10Galaxy SmartTag+There are no offers at the moment