Find your lost wallet with your iPhone using the SwitchBot Wallet Finder Card

I keep an AirTag on my keychain to keep track of my keys, but obviously an AirTag is too big and bulky to fit in a wallet. That’s what the SwitchBot Wallet Finder is for. (Wallet Finder is currently 30% off for Black Friday, So it’s an even better offer than normal at the moment.)

Hidden in a thin credit card form factor, the SwitchBot Wallet Finder connects to the Find My app on your iPhone so you can track its location. It’s also equipped with a speaker so you can use it to beep to help you find your wallet if it inevitably gets lost somewhere in your home. Read on for my review…

Set up

The setup is super easy. Although it claims to support its own app and Android, I only used it through the Apple Find My app built into the phone. I didn’t download the SwitchBot app at all. To set it up, open Find My, tap Add Item, and hold the button on the Wallet Finder card for a few seconds.

You then select a name and an emoji symbol to identify it later. By default, it suggested “Benjamin’s Key,” but I renamed it “Benjamin’s Wallet,” selected one of the available emojis next to the wallet, hit “Next,” and I was done. Then it just fits into one of the empty card slots in my wallet.

How it tracks location

As a reminder, Find My accessories do not have GPS. Instead, they send a low-power Bluetooth signal that nearby Apple devices – such as iPhones, iPads and Macs – receive. The location is then transmitted securely and confidentially to the Find My network, hopefully allowing you to find and retrieve your lost item.

Even if you’re miles away, as long as there’s someone nearby with an Apple device, the wallet can be found on the map in the Find My app. Plus, you don’t have to worry about ongoing subscriptions or other costs (unlike some competitors).

As the success of AirTags shows, the Find My network works really well and the SwitchBot Wallet Finder is just as effective. If your item is stationary and located near one of the billions of iOS devices in the world, it won’t take long for its location to appear in Find My. However, when the object moves, the location updates lag slightly behind real time.

You can also explicitly mark your item as lost using the Find My app. Then, if someone else finds your wallet and wants to help return it to its rightful owner, they can use the Identify Found Item feature in Find My, which displays your contact information, to arrange for it to be returned to you. The upcoming iOS 18.2 update even adds the ability to create a shareable link that you can send to others to help find your lost items.

Search nearby using the speaker

Unlike an AirTag, the Wallet Finder doesn’t have an ultra-wideband radio. This means it lacks the Precision Finding feature that the AirTag offers in close proximity.

However, the integrated speaker in the Wallet Finder is more than sufficient to find your lost wallet. When in Bluetooth range, the card makes a fairly loud sound. It’s a little quieter than the sound of an AirTag and is of course muffled a bit when stored in a closed wallet, but it’s still audible, more than enough to hear from a distance.

In the (embarrassingly common) event that I misplace my wallet somewhere in my house, I can now simply open the Find My app, click play sound, and instantly hear which room it’s in.

As an added convenience, Find My also works with the voice assistant Siri. For example, I can shout “Where’s my wallet?” on my HomePod and it will start pinging it for me.

Security and tracking

Just like AirTags, the Wallet Finder is marketed as a device that helps locate lost items. It is not intended to solve problems of theft or to maliciously track other people. If the card is separated from its owner for a period of time, the speaker will make a sound to alert people to its presence. It also triggers alerts on all nearby iPhones that an unknown object is moving with you.

It’s also worth noting that someone else with the card in their possession can disable the Find My connection by pressing the button in a specific shutdown sequence.

Diploma

When used as intended, the SwitchBot Wallet Finder is very effective and offers excellent value for money. While it’s obviously designed to be stored in a wallet, it even has a built-in cutout in case you want to attach it to some sort of lanyard or keychain. I highly recommend it.

The only downside you might want to be aware of is that the Wallet Finder card doesn’t have the ability to replace the battery. It is a single-use consumable designed to last approximately three years. But the contents of your wallet are so valuable that it probably makes financial sense to simply buy a new one when it ever runs out. You just have to be okay with the environmental waste.