Apple AirTags have speakers in them, and the speaker is not entirely under the owner’s control. [Shahram] shows how the speaker of an AirTag can be disabled while keeping the device watertight. Because AirTags are not intended to be opened or tampered with, doing so boils down to making a hole in just the right place, as the video demonstrates.
How does putting a hole in the enclosure not compromise water resistance? By ensuring the hole is made in an area that is already “inside” the seal. In an AirTag, that seal is integrated into the battery compartment.
Behind the battery, the enclosure has a small area of thinner plastic that sits right above the PCB, and in particular, right above the soldered wire of the speaker. Since this area is “inside” the watertight seal, a hole can be made here without affecting water resistance.
Disabling the speaker consists of melting through that thin plastic with a soldering iron then desoldering the (tiny) wire and using some solder wick to clean up. It’s not the prettiest operation, but there are no components nor any particularly heat-sensitive bits in that spot. The modification has no effect on water resistance, and isn’t even visible unless the battery is removed.
In the video below, [Shahram] uses a second generation AirTag to demonstrate the mod, then shows that the AirTag still works normally while now being permanently silenced.
Why would one want to permanently silence an AirTag, putting it into so-called “stealth mode”? That’s a good question. If you’re not familiar, one of the circumstances under which AirTags emit sound is if it is separated from its owner and has been moving with someone else for some period of time. Intended as an anti-stalking feature, [Shahram] points out that this behavior can also be a nuisance or straight up undesirable. For example, one may be using the tag on a pet collar, to track one’s luggage, or on a potential theft target like a bike. Modern phones in any case alert their owners if a tag they do not own appears to be moving with them, also as an anti-stalking measure.
In [Shahram]’s case, he has hidden an AirTag on his bike. He figures that if his bike should be stolen, a beeping AirTag would announce its existence to the thief and they would in all likelihood simply locate and discard the tracker. But if the tag is silent, the thief — still notified by their phone that a tracker is with them but unable to locate it on the bike — would be more likely to discard the bike instead, allowing it to be safely recovered.
Regardless, the process shows how a careful understanding of a device’s internals can allow for modifications that don’t require opening the whole thing, and the process is a bit reminiscent of drilling into a Stadia controller to permanently disable the mic.
