Do you mean anti-theft, theft deterrent or recovery device?
Are you trying to prevent your bike from being stolen or help recover it once somebody 'mistakenly' took possession of it?

My experience has been that the anti-stalk features of the AirTags do not prevent them from being used effectively as anti-theft devices. While in theory it would appear that thieves could scan for an AirTag, in practice it doesn't appear to be that simple. I added AirTags to all of my restaurant safes and have successfully been able to track miscreants back to their home locations (I had one ping at a former employee's house for 6+ months).

My biggest challenge has been getting the authorities in SF/Oakland to act on that information.

recovery device. tracking it after it gets hauled away.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Had an athlete's bike stolen in Vegas while he was passing through the area. Had cell phone footage from a good Samaritan of the bike being ridden away from the scene with very clear footage of who took it. Had an airtag showing the location of the bike in a home.
Police refused to intervene as they did not want to "antagonize a situation' over something like a bike theft.

Not sure if that was just Vegas Police, but seems pretty useless to have one to recover a stolen bike if cops won't go recover it.

an Airtag will work, just try to hide it in a difficult place inside the bike, then you will have time to find it before the thief do.

You can add places to the airtag, so you will get notify if the bike left behind. Hope Apple add movement options, so even if you are away from the bike, you get notify.

i don't think you can find another tracking device, small, long battery life and cheap without monthly fee.

What about Android? Is tile the best option?

Used an Airtag heading to Nice. During transfer in Atlanta, with the plane ready to take off, I noticed bike wasn't loaded. Also was tracking bike using Delta's tracking app. I mentioned this to the flight attendant, and they said they would check. A short time later they announced a slight delay due to luggage. We finally took off after the bike was loaded. Was pretty pleased with the device and Delta.

Same as Peace2000 above. My sons bike got stollen with airtag attached. Its a $350 school hybrid. Tracked it to a sketchy part of town where a vibrant stolen bike scene exists in our university town. Police were willing to escort us the the run down apartments but would not enter. Police said you sure you want to do this? Ended up not worth it. Maybe it would be different for a $$ bike but the Police were not going to do much, no reason for the person to open the door and it was basically a fools errand. Flip side is if you catch the bike on the move outside, then maybe but bring someone other then a triathlete, your going to want a body guard.

This is nuts. If law enforcement knows exactly where the stolen product is and asks you if you want to enter... I mean that's completely unacceptable for them not to go get it themselves. Get a warrant. Recover the item. That's craziness! I don't care if it's $350 or $35k.

And this was simply accepted by the athlete? By you? By anyone? By society?

It's unconscionable!

You can disable the sound feature easily so that it might be known to be on a bike but can’t easily be found (like inside a bb)

One phone can disable “their” tracking but so many others can pick up the airtag

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http://www.TriScottsdale.org

I've disabled the sound on mine. I can make it chirp if I'm looking for it, but it does not make noise otherwise. Our store has bikes and the chirp when it moves tells me a tag is in there....really gives a thief a warning to remove it, so that doesn't make sense to me. I used it in my bike case recently to the Netherlands and it worked flawlessly, as it does in my luggage the last few years.

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Kiwami Racing Team

An AirTag is silent unless you activate the sound, I generally only use the sound when I have lost my keys etc. and I use the sound to locate them. Generally, you use the map to locate the tag.

You can also hide an airtag on a bike. You can get a mount underneath the water bottle holder and you can’t tell it is there. You can also add one to the stem without it being seen.

Have seen these - I just picked up a 4iii precision 3 + which also acts as an AirTag within the powermeter. Handy stuff

There are civil liberty protections in place for a reason. The police have a process to go through and can't just take your word for it and the presence of a tracker to assert ownership.

I once had $3k in camera gear stolen and I found the thief selling it online. Luckily this was in Texas (I was already several states away by then). I got a detective who said he'd knock on the door and ask a few questions and imply that he'd be better to return it than "face the consequences" but had no guarantee he could get it back.

The thief was intimated enough to give it back. The officer shipped it back to me. Pretty cool. But again, that process could easily be abused if I was in a domestic dispute, wanting to frame someone out of spite, or there was a malicious police officer. I the long run, we are all better off when slow moving justice that let's some bad actors fall through the cracks then presuming we can make a system that will catch every criminal quickly, while also ensnaring the innocent.

We are an Android family, so we have a metric ton of Tiles. As I understand it - and it makes sense - they are less robust b/c all iPhones are automatically on the lookout for Airtags but only the Android devices that are set up for Tile detection are on the lookout. Still, useful. I've been able to tell if my bike is loaded on the plane I'm on and know when my bag/bike is coming out of the luggage return. Not much $ for a significant 'peace of mind' function. Recommended. We now have them on both dogs. Unlikely to be helpful if they get out (again), but inexpensive and maybe useful.

Here in Thailand there's a bunch of aliexpress style airtags for androids, I got some after the lahti to nice issues of lost luggage and missing bike, will also hide in my bike and use for my cat on his harness.

Basically my view on thieves having handled a few corporate decisions here. Offering some small money 50usd for example for an "honest mistake of taking a bike that must have looked like theirs" with an implied threat or returning with warrant and cop and bike or item normally gets returned fairly quickly. Might even make a new friend (probably not) like the freakanomics guys who wrote about drug gang income economics after one was semi abducted when trying to administer a questionnaire - after being held by the gang overnight the guy went back and said hey can we hang out some more so I can understand your drug business?! Ymmv. Giving a way for ppl to back out might change them for the better and also u might get the bike back