AirTag battery replacement: avoid bitterant coatings

If you use an Apple AirTag, following about a calendar year or so, your Iphone will warn you that the battery needs to be replaced.  I individual four AirTags that I obtained about 14 months ago, and two of them have alerted me that it is time to exchange the battery.  I replaced the battery in a person of them soon before getting a vacation to Italy, only to discover that I bought the completely wrong battery.  Master from my blunder, and make absolutely sure that when you invest in a replacement CR2032 lithium 3V coin battery, do not purchase the model with a bitterant coating on it.

These batteries are modest circles, and some little ones might be tempted to place them in their mouths and swallow them.  Which is not great.  A CR2032 battery with a bitterant coating preferences bitter when it reacts with saliva in a mouth, and the strategy is that this encourages the little one to instantly choose the battery out of his or her mouth as a substitute of swallowing it.  This sort of battery must give you clear indications on the packaging that a bitterant coating is becoming used.  Here is the one particular that bought from Amazon:

The plan of deterring improper use by young children is a laudable aim, but seemingly, the coating helps make these batteries not operate with specified digital machines.  Together with the AirTag, as Apple warns on its internet site.

I failed to feel about this warning when I purchased this set of batteries, so I mounted one particular of these in the AirTag attached to my suitcase soon before my trip.  I ought to have recognized instantaneously that there was a trouble mainly because when you twist off the go over of an AirTag and switch the battery, just before you even put the protect again on, the AirTag is intended to make a seem to reveal that the new battery is linked.  I didn’t listen to that audio when I replaced this battery. 

The battery with the coating did once in a while work with the AirTag.  For illustration, when I arrived in Milan, Italy, the battery labored perfectly enough for this AirTag to see that it was in Milan.  But that was the last location that the AirTag labored.  Even soon after I returned dwelling to the United States, the AirTag continue to incorrectly noted that it was in Milan, about 5,200 miles absent:

The option, of course, was to acquire a new established of CR2032 batteries that do not comprise a bitterannt coating.  When I mounted the new battery, the two in this AirTag and my other just one that needed a new battery right after my holiday vacation finished, the AirTags straight away labored.  As quickly as I put in the battery, I listened to the audio.  And the AirTags accurately documented their spot.

What annoys me about my error is that I really should have recognised improved.  Nearly specifically a yr ago, I joined to a report that CR2032 batteries with a bitterant coating could possibly not work with the AirTag.  But a 12 months afterwards, I forgot about that.  With any luck ,, immediately after reading through this, you won’t forget when it is time for you to acquire a new battery.