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Samsung's SmartTag 3 lets the iPhone owners in a Galaxy household help find lost things
Samsung's Galaxy SmartTag 3 is the first tag in its line to work with iPhones, and it goes on sale in South Korea on October 7. Buyers elsewhere wait until 2027, and anyone hanging it on keys will need a Samsung case.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Samsung is pitching iOS support as a way to share tracking with family, friends or a dogwalker, and The Verge says it does not appear to expect AirTag owners to switch.
- The tag is 35 percent smaller and 33 percent lighter than the SmartTag 2, and its replaceable CR2032 battery is rated for 550 days, or 790 in power-saving mode.
- Tracking runs on Samsung's own Galaxy Find Network, not Google's Find Hub, with ultra-wideband and Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding for close-range finding within 200 feet.
- New alerts fire when a tag enters or leaves a set area or shifts slightly, and a location history shows where the tag has been.
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Why it matters
- decision A household that splits Galaxy phones and iPhones can now share one Samsung tag on a pet or bag, so the buying test becomes who else needs to see the tag.
- cost Anyone who hangs a tracker on keys or a carabiner now buys a Samsung case as well, so the tag's sticker price understates what a keys setup costs.
- contradiction Gizmodo prints a $29.99 price and early November availability while The Verge says Samsung has confirmed neither a US price nor a US date, leaving buyers outside Korea without firm figures to plan around.
- constraint Households on non-Samsung Android phones cannot count on support yet, since Gizmodo says it works and The Verge was still waiting on Samsung to confirm it.
A Galaxy owner clips a tracker to the dog's collar and hands the lead to a walker who carries an iPhone. Every earlier SmartTag worked only with Samsung phones, so the walker's phone could not help if the dog got loose [2]. The SmartTag 3 is built for that walker [7].
The product-deck version of this is a tracker that crosses platforms. The version people will use is narrower: a tag owned by a Samsung user that the people around that user can also follow when something goes missing [7]. Gizmodo reports that non-Samsung Android phones are supported as well [9]. The Verge had asked Samsung to confirm exactly that [8].
Making the tag smaller cost it the hole for a key ring. Attaching it to keys or a carabiner now takes one of Samsung's protective cases [5], and neither report lists a case price. Samsung's accessory list shows where it expects the tag to go: a bike, a luggage handle, a pet collar or a child's backpack [16]. Gizmodo adds that the smaller body fits more easily in a wallet [16].
On a replaceable CR2032 coin cell, 550 days of normal use is about a year and a half between battery changes [6][2]. Power-saving mode stretches that to a little over two years [2].
Price and timing depend on the report. The Verge puts the Korean on-sale date at October 7 [3]. Samsung said "additional markets" will follow in 2027, and it has not confirmed a US date or price, according to The Verge [4]. Gizmodo lists $29.99 for one tag and $99.99 for a four-pack, available in early November, without naming the market [10][11]. At Gizmodo's prices the four-pack works out to about $25 a tag, roughly $5 below a single [1]. The SmartTag 2 sold for $29.99 [17].
Two axes sort the purchase: whether anyone who needs to find the item uses an iPhone, and whether the tag hangs from the item or sits inside it. In an all-Samsung home with tags in wallets and bags, the gains are size and battery, since the SmartTag 2 already covered those phones [2][6]. Move that tag to a key ring and add the cost of a case [5]. A mixed home tracking a pet or a suitcase is the buyer Samsung pitched [7]. A mixed home tracking keys gets the sharing and pays for the case too [5].
I think the mixed-phone household with a dog or a suitcase to track should buy one when it can. The tradeoff is a case for anything on a ring and, outside South Korea, a wait that Samsung puts in 2027 [4].
What to watch
- A Samsung confirmation of a US price and release date, which would settle whether Gizmodo's $29.99 and early-November figures apply outside South Korea.
- Samsung's answer to The Verge on whether non-Samsung Android phones are supported.
- The price of Samsung's SmartTag 3 cases, which sets the real cost for anyone putting the tag on keys or a carabiner.