Google’s Pixel Tag Goes on Sale at $29.99 as Android Gets Its Own AirTag
Google’s first item tracker, the Pixel Tag, goes on sale on Wednesday for $29.99, giving Android users a first-party rival to Apple’s AirTag more than three months after it was unveiled alongside the Pixel 11 phones.
The slim, oval tag works with Google’s Find Hub network, which draws on more than a billion Android devices worldwide to locate lost items. A four-pack costs $99.99, undercutting the per-tag price to about $25 each. The device is sold through the Google Store in the United States.
Google first showed the Pixel Tag in August at its Made by Google event, but held it back until now. Reviews published this week describe it as the obvious benchmark for Android trackers, with one early test finding a left-behind alert arrived in under five minutes on a busy street and ultra-wideband guidance leading the tester to the exact spot.
Precision finding, without an iPhone
Like Apple’s AirTag, the Pixel Tag uses Bluetooth and ultra-wideband to guide owners to a missing item. When a tagged item is nearby, the Find Hub app shows visual distance and directional guidance on screen. A built-in speaker plays a chime to help locate the item, with three loudness levels reaching about 80 decibels at maximum.
If the phone is the thing that is lost, pressing the button on the tag twice rings the paired handset. The tag also sends “left behind” alerts when an item is separated from its owner, with exclusion zones for places such as home or work.
For items that are further away, the Pixel Tag relies on Google’s crowdsourced network. Other Android devices that pass near the tag can detect it and relay its location to the owner, which is then shown on a map inside Find Hub. The tag’s location can also be shared with up to 10 people, which Google suggests could suit shared items such as family car keys.
A slimmer design than AirTag
Google has deliberately avoided copying Apple’s circular design. The Pixel Tag is a slimmer, elongated oval: 1.1 inches wide, 1.8 inches high and 0.2 inches thick, weighing 0.4 ounces including the battery. That makes it thinner than the AirTag, which measures 1.26 inches across and 0.31 inches thick.
The tag is made from stainless steel and carries an IP67 rating for water and dust resistance, meaning it can survive immersion in up to one metre of water for 30 minutes. It is powered by a user-replaceable CR2032 coin-cell battery, which Google says lasts up to a year. It pairs with phones running Android 9 or newer through Fast Pair, and works with Pixel Watch wearers too.
One detail Google did not mention in August has emerged with the retail unit: the tag supports NFC. Tapping it opens its Find Hub settings page, a late addition that was not part of the original announcement.
The tag comes in two shades, silver and a pale green called Fog. Unlike the AirTag, it has no built-in hole for a keyring, so owners will need a case or holder. Accessory maker Bellroy is launching its own keychain cases alongside the tag, which will also be sold on the Google Store.
Android’s missing piece
Item trackers have been a conspicuous gap in Google’s hardware line-up. Apple has sold the AirTag since 2021, and Samsung, Motorola and Pebblebee have all offered trackers for Android, but none of them was made by Google itself. With the Pixel Tag, Google now controls the hardware, the Find Hub network and the software that ties them together.
The timing also matters. The tracker arrives weeks before the holiday shopping season, when lost luggage, keys and gifts make trackers an easy purchase, and it lands alongside Google’s November Pixel Drop, which adds new software features across the Pixel range.
Whether Android users adopt the tag in the numbers Apple has managed remains to be seen. The AirTag has had five years to build its network and its accessory ecosystem, and Google is starting from scratch on both. But at $29.99 — the same price as a single AirTag — and with a network that spans more than a billion devices, the Pixel Tag is the first tracker that gives Android owners a genuinely comparable option.
