Bags with Find My tech a likely trend this year, including Targus backpack

Bags with Find My tech built into them seem likely to become a trend this year, with Targus leading the way with its upcoming Cypress Hero Backpack.

The bag – which is big enough to accommodate a 16-inch MacBook Pro – is due to go on sale in the spring or summer, priced at $150. The company first teased it late last year …

While it’s of course trivial to slip an AirTag into any bag (and I have one in each of my most-used bags), having the tech built in offers a couple of advantages.

First, tech-savvy thieves are likely to look for and discard an AirTag when they steal a bag. Second, Targus says that their tracker – which is not an embedded AirTag – is rechargeable.

Targus continues its mission to create a more sustainable future with the expansion of its EcoSmart Collection of laptop bags and tablet cases made from recycled materials. New to its Cypress with EcoSmart Collection, Targus is introducing its Cypress Hero Backpack with Apple Find My Technology, a high-tech, sustainable backpack constructed from 26 recycled plastic water bottles. A CES 2022 Innovation Awards honoree, the backpack has a built-in location tracker that enables its owner to find it on the Find My app if it goes missing.

Or if their iPhone is lost, users can simply press a button in the backpack to ping their phone, sending an alert to inform them of its location. The backpack comes with a replaceable battery that is rechargeable via USB, and unlike other portable trackers, it is highly integrated, providing additional protection against theft.

Apple itself touts Find My tech as geared more to accidental loss of an item, rather than recovery following a theft, but many of us do view it as significantly boosting the chances of regaining possession of a stolen item. There is supporting evidence for this, of AirTags enabling the recovery of a stolen electric scooter and even a stolen car.

Apple opened the Find My network to third-party products back in April of last year – a decision likely driven by antitrust concerns after its run-in with Tile. I said at the time that this is, to me, the future of the tech.

I don’t want to have to attach an AirTag to a camera, I want the camera to have Find My capabilities built right in. I don’t want an AirTag baggage tag on my travel bag, I want my bag to have the feature as standard. Same with everything from headphones to bicycles. (Actually, more than anything else, I want the tech built into sunglasses, as statistically those are my most-misplaced possession!)

I first got the chance to try out built-in Find My capabilities when I tested the VanMoof S3 bicycle, and hope that premium bag makers will adopt it as a standard feature.