Apple shook up the key finder market with its sleek AirTag back in 2021, but established players such as Tile and Chipolo haven't thrown in the towel. Far from it – rival key finders are more competitive than ever. The Chipolo one spot is a Find My-compatible tracker that gives Apple's own-brand model a serious nudge.
While the Chipolo one spot might trade the AirTag's polished stainless steel aesthetic for a more utilitarian plastic disc, it still boasts full integration with Apple's Find My network. This lets you tap into the global network of iOS devices to help locate your lost keys or bag, just like you would with an AirTag, when you’re not in Bluetooth range of your lost item. Chipolo offers other trackers for Android users (£48 for four, Chipolo.net), but the "spot" in one spot means it’s strictly an Apple-ecosystem affair.
This little disc, roughly the size of a £2 coin, comes with a handy keyring hole, a replaceable year-long battery and IPX5 water resistance, so it will survive the rain. It even packs a surprisingly loud 120dB speaker, to help you pinpoint its location when it’s lost under the sofa cushions. But with a similar price tag, should you opt for the Chipolo one spot over Apple’s own AirTag?
How we tested
We connected the Chipolo one spot to our iPhone and our keys. We then tested the tracker by sounding the integrated speaker in our home, in a bid to relocate our “misplaced keys”. To test the Find My network, we put the Chipolo in our car a few streets away then returned home and marked it as lost, in a bid to simulate dropping our keys while out on a walk. The Find My network then pinged us with the location of the Chipolo, thanks to a fellow iPhone user walking close by.
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Chipolo one spot
Price and availability
The Chipolo one spot is on clearance at £18. For comparison, the Apple AirTag (Apple.com) is more expensive, at £35 for one, and Apple’s multibuy offer is less attractive, with four AirTags costing £119.
It might be tempting to spend the extra on the Apple AirTag, but a key difference is how that tracker lacks a hole for attaching keys and other possessions. The only way to attach an AirTag to your keys is to buy an Apple keyring accessory, which starts at £29 – and therefore doubles the initial outlay. Third-party AirTag accessories can be bought for a fraction of that, but the advantage still sits with the Chipolo one spot, as an integrated hole means it can hook right onto your keys.
Find My integration makes the one spot slightly more expensive than Chipolo’s regular one (Chipolo.net), which is (at the time of writing) on offer at £13 for one, £44 for four and £59 for six. As explained earlier, this is the Chipolo tracker Android phone users should buy, as the one spot is exclusive to Apple devices. It is also worth noting that the one spot does not work with the Chipolo app.
Design
The one spot has a fairly unremarkable design. It’s a small plastic disc that is light and, while looking cheap, seems tough enough to survive a lifetime attached to your keys.
Although larger than an AirTag, the Chipolo one spot is actually the same size as Apple’s leather AirTag keyring case, so once both devices are attached to a keyring they take up exactly the same amount of pocket or bag space.
How does it work?
If you’ve ever used an Apple AirTag, this will all sound very familiar to you. There are three ways in which the Chipolo one spot can help you find it (and whatever it’s attached to). These all involve the Find My app on your iPhone or iPad.
Firstly, a constant Bluetooth connection between the one spot and your iPhone means you can have it play an alarm to help you find it. This is useful when you’ve misplaced the Chipolo nearby, like when your keys have fallen down the back of the sofa. At a claimed 120dB, the Chipolo one spot seems significantly louder to our ears than the Apple AirTag, making it easy to find, even from another room.
If you misplace the Chipolo while outside – say you drop your keys while on a walk – the Find My app will show where the tracker was last attached to your iPhone via Bluetooth. This should get you close enough to connect to the Chipolo and hear its alarm.
Lastly, you can call upon the Find My network. Mark the Chipolo as lost in the Find My app, leave your phone number or email address so that someone who finds it can connect you (this is optional) and wait.
When a fellow member of the Find My network (in other words, another iPhone or iPad user) comes within Bluetooth range of your lost Chipolo one spot, you’ll be notified through the Find My app and given its location.
All that’s missing, compared with an AirTag, is ultra-wideband technology (UWB), which lets iPhone users locate their lost possession more precisely when within a few metres of it. That said, while it’s a nice example of how UWB and AirTags work, we think the extra loudness of the Chipolo one spot is a more useful attribute.
How good is it?
Adding the Chipolo to your iPhone is quick and easy, with the process being identical to that of adding an AirTag to Apple’s Find My app. From here, you can give the Chipolo a name and assign an emoji to it for easy identification.
There’s also an option where the app will notify you if it thinks you’ve left the Chipolo behind at an unfamiliar location. You can add exceptions to this rule, like your home, so the app doesn’t bother you every time you leave without your bag, but still pings you if you leave any other location, like a train station, without it.
Once added to your phone, it’s really a case of ‘set it and forget it’, as the one spot will quietly stay connected to your iPhone, ready to help out when it goes missing.
As we said earlier, the speaker of the Chipolo is especially loud – louder than the Apple AirTag and Tile pro (at least to our ears). This means you can easily find it, even from several rooms away. Handy for when you’ve misplaced your keys, yet again.
During testing, the Chipolo’s alarm sounded the moment we asked it to in the Find My app. When left in our car a few streets away, it didn’t take long for a fellow iPhone user to pass by, which updated the Chipolo’s location in our Find My app. Naturally, how long this takes will depend on the population density of the area, and how many iPhone users are nearby.
Buy now £18.00, Chipolo.net
The verdict: Chipolo one spot
On clearance at £18, the Chipolo one spot is a must-buy for anyone concerned about losing their keys, bag or other possessions. It connects to your iPhone in just a few seconds, helps you find lost items around the house, pings you if it thinks you’ve left something behind while away from home, and then uses millions of Find My users to help track down something you’ve lost.
It might not look as nice as an Apple AirTag, but for something that’ll spend its life attached to your keys, aesthetics really shouldn’t matter. The one spot is also better value than an AirTag, thanks to not needing an accessory just to attach it to your keyring.
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