When Apple introduced the AirTag almost two years ago to this day, it made waves because every iPhone could passively help identify and locate the object trackers. Earlier this year, we got word of Google’s plans to follow suit with an AirTag replica as well, codenamed Grogu at the time. Now, it appears Grogu has an official-sounding name and an icon you should get used to seeing.
Hidden deep in Google’s multi-page Material Icons catalog hosted on the Google Fonts site, @neil_rahmouni found a new icon for a product called a Nest Locator Tag (via SlashLeaks). It looks just like the keyrings for Apple AirTags, so it's hard to imagine this product would be anything other than the rumored Grogu tracker identified by leaker Kuba Wojciechowski earlier this year.
Google’s new Material You icon for the Nest Locator Tag
The discovery of this new icon is an indicator that work on a tracker is underway at Google, and the way we see it, the company wouldn’t be completing iconography without having the physical form locked down first. So, based solely on the icon, it's somewhat safe to assume that the Nest Locator Tag will look quite like Apple’s AirTag.
If there's any reason for skepticism, it would be that this form factor resembles an existing product called the Google Nest Tag. This was used by the now-defunct Nest Secure system as a quick way to disable alarms. However, there's a separate, dedicated Nest Tag entry on the Material Icons page, so it's clear that these are two separate products.
The Nest Locator Tag could resemble the old Google Nest Tag for Nest Secure systems
Following Wojciechowski’s discovery in January, my colleague Karandeep Singh looked at everything Google could do better than the AirTag, and it seems like the Search titan might deliver. It may be a couple of years late to the party, but all the features we need could be on offer — ultra-wideband (UWB), Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), a built-in speaker for chimes, fast pair, and an Apple-like distributed tracking network called the “Finder Network.”
Moreover, Google’s delayed arrival could help dodge the AirTag’s initial security concerns and stalking incidents involving the object tracker. In the wake of this, Apple created an Android app to alert people of unidentified AirTags following them around. However, an ideal long-term solution to combat misuse would be an industry-wide standard, and Google is currently working along those lines with Apple.
We have missed the convenience of something like an AirTag in the Android ecosystem, and Google’s Nest Locator Tag could be the answer we’ve all been waiting for, especially if the initial security concerns are ironed out. With any luck, we hope to catch a glimpse or fleeting mention of this new product at Google’s I/O conference later this month.