Technologies

5 Unique Places to Put an Apple AirTag

AirTags are a great way to track your items, but finding a place to put them might be a challenge. Here are five unique spots to consider.

Apple AirTags have been out for several years now, with many rival options available, including Tile and Chipolo if you’re an Android user, as well as Eufy and Samsung competitors. But AirTags are still great trackers for Apple users who may be prone to losing important personal items and thry can bring peace of mind for travelers who want to keep tabs on their luggage. Whether you’re forgetful or an avid traveler, AirTags can be a helpful tool.

These small but mighty gadgets are discreet enough to fit most places but powerful enough to locate items globally, thanks to Apple’s Find My network. Installation is a breeze and once set up, it’ll continue to passively monitor your item for you until you need to locate it. If you’re curious to know more about AirTags, their benefits and unique places to stash one, read on.

Read more: Lost Your Luggage? This iPhone and AirTag Feature Might Help You Find It

How do AirTags work?

Generally, you need to be within Bluetooth range to find your AirTag but you can use Apple’s Find My service to locate Apple’s tiny tracker if it’s farther away, as long as it’s still in range of another Apple device. (Here’s how the Find My network works.) To do so, just put your AirTag into Lost Mode and you’ll get a notification once it’s within range of the Find My network.

For more details, here’s how to tell if an AirTag is tracking your location on Android and adeep dive into AirTags.

5 unique places to put your AirTags

🏕️ Put an AirTag in your tent for camping

If you’re setting up camp in a location you’ve never visited, it could be useful to place an AirTag inside your tent so you can easily find your campsite. For instance, if you decide to hike several miles one day, you can use Find My to look up the AirTag’s last location (your tent) and get directions back to the campsite. Remember, it’ll need to be within range of someone else’s device, so don’t rely on this out in the wilderness. (This is also why Apple advises you not to use AirTags on pets.) For serious wilderness excurisions, you’ll want something with GPS and pet owners will want a dedicated pet tracker.

Read more: AirTags Are Not the Best Way to Find Lost Pets

🧥 Put a tracker in your jacket pocket

How often have you left your coat behind in a restaurant, bar or friend’s house? Forgetting to grab your jacket when you head out is easy to do, especially if the weather is warmer than you expected or your hands are full of leftovers and to-go cups. If you know you’ll be hanging your jacket on a coat rack or the back of a chair when you arrive, place an AirTag inside the pocket so you know where you left it. This can help prevent yet another favorite jacket from getting lost and less money out of your wallet to replace it.

🧳 Stash an AirTag inside your luggage

Airports can be tricky to navigate and can be especially difficult when you’re trying to find the correct luggage pickup. Sometimes you wait 30 minutes until your bags finally roll out on the conveyor belt and sometimes they get lost. To relieve the stress of trying to locate your suitcase, you can put an AirTag tracker inside so you can track its whereabouts.

This can help you find out if your bags were left on the airplane, if they’re on the conveyor belt but you haven’t spotted them yet or if someone mistakenly grabbed your luggage. Once you find out where your bags are, you can remedy the situation and continue on to where you’re going. Don’t worry, AirTags are TSA-approved so there shouldn’t be any issues with placing them in your luggage.

Read more: 7 Google Maps Travel Tips for a Stress-Free Holiday Experience

🎒 Stick a tracker inside your laptop bag

Laptop bags can be easily left behind at a cafe when you’re picking up coffee for everyone at the office. When your hands are full and you’re distracted wondering how you’re going to open your car door, it’s hard to remember to grab your bag from the booth you were sitting in. That’s why it’s a good idea to place an AirTag inside one of the pockets. You will be able to locate your expensive laptop and save any confidential company or personal information in your bag.

🚲 Hide an AirTag on your bicycle

If it hasn’t happened to you, you probably know someone who has had this experience. You get home from a bike ride, go inside to grab water and something to eat and completely forget about the bike you left outside. Or maybe you went to the store, didn’t lock your bike up and when you came back it was gone. If you place an AirTag in a hidden place on the bike, you can easily locate it.

We don’t recommend tracking the bicycle down on your own. It’s best to notify the police and let them retrieve your bike so you can avoid any dangerous situations. This method also works on your car if it’s been stolen or towed, or if you can’t remember where you parked it. If you have an iPhone and it’s connected to your car via Bluetooth, your phone can locate where you last left it.

More common areas to put an AirTag

AirTag is commonly used to locate these items:

Your keychain
Your purse or wallet
Your phone or tablet
The remote to your TV
Your Nintendo Switch 2, Steam Deck and other handheld gaming consoles
Anything valuable that you leave outside your home

For more Apple information, read how to make Siri glow and turn off Apple Intelligence.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Nov. 4, #1599

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Nov. 4, No. 1,599.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle begins with one of the least-used letters in the alphabet. (Check our full list ranking the letters by popularity.) If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has two vowels, but one is the repeated letter, so you’ll see that one twice.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with V.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with E.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to the place where something happens, especially an organized event such as a concert, conference, or sports event.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is VENUE.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Nov. 3, No. 1598 was AWOKE.

Recent Wordle answers

Oct. 30, No. 1594: LATHE

Oct. 31, No. 1595: ABHOR

Nov. 1, No. 1596: MOTEL

Nov. 2, No. 1597: RABID

Technologies

Why You Should Consider a Burner Phone for Your Holiday Travel This Year

If you’re traveling internationally, carrying a simple phone that doesn’t store personal information can be a smart move when entering the US.

Travel is challenging enough, and this year adds a new hurdle. US border agents are stepping up searches of travelers entering the country — even US citizens returning from overseas — and that extends to their personal devices. These searches can go beyond a quick look, giving agents the authority to copy or analyze a phone’s contents.

According to new figures from US Customs and Border Protection, nearly 15,000 device searches were carried out between April and June, with over 1,000 of them using advanced tools that copy or analyze what’s on a phone. The rising numbers raise questions about how much personal data travelers may be handing over without realizing it.

So what’s the solution? A burner phone. It’s the ultimate defense for keeping your personal data private when you travel, ensuring you stay connected without handing over your entire digital life at the border.

But the appeal goes beyond privacy. A stripped-down phone is also the perfect escape from the constant notifications and screen-time vortex of your primary device. Even celebrities such as Conan O’Brien have embraced simpler phones to cut through the noise. Whether you’re crossing a border or just trying to cross the street without distractions, a burner might be the smartest tech you own.

Read more: Best Prepaid Phone of 2025

Although carriers have offered prepaid phones since the ’90s, «burner phones» or «burners» became popular in the 2000s following the celebrated HBO series The Wire, where they helped characters avoid getting caught by the police. Although often portrayed in that light, burners aren’t only used by criminals; they’re also used anyone concerned with surveillance or privacy infringement.

What is a burner phone, and how does it work? Here’s everything you need to know about burners and how to get one.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

What is a burner phone?

A burner phone is a cheap prepaid phone with no commitments. It comes with a set number of prepaid call minutes, text messages or data, and it’s designed to be disposed of after use.

Burners are contract-free, and you can grab them off the counter. They’re called burner phones because you can «burn» them (trash them) after use, and the phone can’t be traced back to you, which makes them appealing to criminals. Burner phones are typically used when you need a phone quickly, without intentions of long-term use.

Burners are different from getting a regular, contract-bound cellphone plan that requires your information to be on file.

Why should you use a burner phone?

Burner phones are an easy way to avoid cellphone contracts or spam that you get on your primary phone number. Burners aren’t linked to your identity, so you can avoid being tracked down or contacted.

You don’t have to dispose of a burner phone after use. You can add more minutes and continue using it. Burner phones can still function as regular phones, minus the hassle of a contract.

You can also get a burner phone as a secondary phone for a specific purpose, like having a spare phone number for two-factor authentication texts, for business, or to avoid roaming charges while traveling. Burner phones are often used by anyone concerned with privacy.

Burner phones, prepaid phones, smartphones and burner SIMs: What’s the difference?

Burner phones are cheap phones with simple designs that lack the bells and whistles of a smartphone. Because they’re designed to be disposable, you only get the essentials, as seen by the most common version, the flip phone.

All burner phones are prepaid phones, but not all prepaid phones are burners. What sets a burner apart is that you won’t have to give away any personal information to get one, and it won’t be traceable back to you. Again, a burner phone is cheap enough to be destroyed after use.

Prepaid smartphones are generally low-end models. You can use any unlocked smartphone with prepaid SIM cards, essentially making it a prepaid phone.

If you want a burner, you don’t necessarily have to buy a new phone. You can get a burner SIM and use it with an existing phone. Burner SIMs are prepaid SIMs you can get without a contract or giving away personal information.

Where can you buy a burner phone?

Burner phones are available at all major retail outlets, including Best Buy, Target and Walmart. They’re also often available at convenience stores like 7-Eleven, local supermarkets, gas stations and retail phone outlets like Cricket and Metro.

You can get a burner phone with cash, and it should cost between $10 and $50, although it may cost more if you get more minutes and data. If you’re getting a burner phone specifically to avoid having the phone traced back to you, it makes sense to pay with cash instead of a credit card.

If you just want a prepaid secondary phone, you can use a credit card. Just keep in mind that credit cards leave a trail that leads back to you.

There are also many apps that let you get secondary phone numbers, including Google Fi and the Burner app. However, these aren’t burners necessarily because the providers typically have at least some of your personal information.

If you’re just looking to get a solid prepaid phone without anonymity, check out our full guide for the best prepaid phone plans available. We also have a guide for the best cheap phone plans.

Technologies

Chrome Autofill Now Supports Passport, Driver’s License and Vehicle Info

Soon, you’ll never need to remember anything ever again.

Computer users are accustomed to web browsers autofilling everything from names and addresses to credit card numbers. Now, Google Chrome is adding new enhanced autofill options that allow users to automatically populate fields for passports, driver’s licenses, and their vehicle’s license plate or VIN, Google said in a blog post on Monday.

Desktop users must choose to turn on the feature, which is called enhanced autofill. Otherwise, it stays off. To turn it on, open Chrome, and at the top right of your browser, select more, then settings, then autofill and passwords. Finally, choose enhanced autofill and turn it in.

Google says Chrome now can «better understand complex forms and varied formatting requirements, improving accuracy across the web.» The company also says that enhanced autofill will be «private and secure.»

This enhanced autofill update is available in all languages, and more data options will be supported in the coming months.

A representative for Google said the company had no additional comment.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Chrome is a critical component in Google’s business. The web browser, currently the most popular in the world with a 73% market share, according to GlobalStats, provides the company with valuable user data that it uses to sell advertising. Advertising is how Google makes the majority of its revenues. New features help keep users loyal to Chrome, making it more difficult for them to switch to other browsers, including those from companies like Perplexity and OpenAI.