Samsung Next-Gen SmartTag Trackers Explained: Hardware vs. Network
The most reliable signal that Samsung is working on a new SmartTag isn't a leaked spec sheet it's a pattern. Before Samsung announced the SmartTag2, the device appeared first in the Bluetooth SIG database, then in an FCC filing, per The Verge's July 2023 coverage. Neither filing appeared for a successor in the sources reviewed for this article. When one does surface, the hardware specs will be the least interesting thing in it. The field that actually matters is the app requirement buried in the Bluetooth SIG entry which will signal whether the next Samsung next-gen SmartTag trackers remain tied to Samsung phones or connect to something much larger.
That single line will tell you more about the product than any press release Samsung puts out.
The pre-launch filing trail for next Samsung SmartTag releases
The SmartTag2 cycle established a usable two-step sequence. The device appeared in the Bluetooth SIG database listing Bluetooth 5.3, an efficiency improvement over the Bluetooth 5.1 radio in the original model, along with SmartThings as the required app, per Ars Technica's July 2023 coverage. The FCC filing came about a month later, with hardware design photos confirming a pill-shaped form factor roughly twice the size of an AirTag, complete with an oversized key ring hole. Samsung made no public announcement until October.
That Bluetooth SIG listing did more than confirm a radio spec. The Verge noted it revealed the tracker would continue to require Samsung's SmartThings app, as the filing showed which meant the product's biggest competitive limitation was visible in a regulatory database weeks before Samsung scheduled a single keynote. The FCC filing followed with physical design details. Together, the two filings answered most practical questions about the product before launch.
Each filing type answers a different question, and it's worth knowing which one to weight. The Bluetooth SIG entry reveals the wireless spec and the platform dependency. The FCC listing shows physical design and wireless capabilities. The sequence for any upcoming Samsung SmartTag release will likely follow the same order.
The timeline from the SmartTag2 cycle:
- Bluetooth SIG listing appears: reveals radio spec and platform dependency (the critical field)
- FCC filing follows weeks later: reveals hardware design and wireless bands
- Retail launch arrives roughly eight weeks after the FCC filing
No filing for a SmartTag successor appears in the sources reviewed for this article. When the first one does, that timeline becomes a working countdown.
SamMobile reported in March 2023 that Samsung had let the original SmartTag run for more than two years without a refresh before a successor was in the works a gap that made the SmartTag2 feel overdue when it finally arrived. The SmartTag2 launched in October 2023. If Samsung holds to a similar cadence, a third-generation model is plausible in the medium term, though nothing in the available sources confirms that timing.
What hardware improvements are likely and why they're not the point
The SmartTag2's standout achievement at launch was battery life. Power Saving Mode extended the battery to up to 700 days, more than double earlier models, while Normal Mode reached up to 500 days, a 50% improvement over its predecessor, Samsung confirmed at launch. Newer Bluetooth silicon could push efficiency further, but there's a real ceiling: enabling extended-range BLE modes increases average current draw during beaconing by roughly 20%, according to a December 2025 analysis in Springer. When your baseline is already measured in years rather than months, the room for dramatic improvement narrows considerably.
Precision finding has moved through two meaningful hardware cycles. The original SmartTag Plus introduced UWB as a premium tier; the SmartTag2 folded UWB into the base model alongside directional Compass View for supported Galaxy phones and AR Find for camera-guided location, per Samsung Newsroom. Those are useful features, but they're useful only when the tag is nearby. UWB works within short range. The crowd-sourced network other people's phones detecting your lost tag and anonymously forwarding its location is what determines whether you ever see that tag again when it's genuinely missing.
The software platform around SmartThings Find has also matured. It already includes encrypted location data backed by Samsung Knox, unknown tag alerts that notify users if an unfamiliar SmartTag appears to be traveling with them, and single-account tracking that prevents unauthorized access, Samsung confirmed. There's also SmartThings Station integration, which acts as an always-on home scanner for tagged items. It's a polished ecosystem. Further refinements on both the hardware and software sides remain possible, but the gains from here will be incremental not generational.
Which brings the conversation back to the one variable that hardware upgrades can't solve.
The question hardware can't answer: whose network is the next SmartTag on?
Bluetooth trackers carry no GPS. When a tag moves out of its owner's range, it switches to a lost mode and depends on nearby phones to detect its beacon and relay the location anonymously through a crowd-sourced network, as the Springer analysis describes. Recovery becomes a probability exercise: the more compatible phones in the world, the better the odds that one passes close enough to ping the tag and report back.
Apple's AirTags can be detected by any nearby iPhone, giving them access to the full global iPhone install base, Ars Technica noted. Samsung's SmartTags have historically relayed location only through Samsung phones a much smaller pool even within Android, where Samsung competes with dozens of other manufacturers. The gap between those two networks is where most real-world tracking failures happen: not at UWB range in your living room, but in a parking garage or a foreign airport where the nearest phone happens to be a non-Samsung Android.
Google's Find My Device network was designed to change that calculus for Android broadly. The plan was to deploy it through Play Services rather than requiring an OS update, targeting roughly 3 billion Android devices, Ars Technica reported. The network was also built as an open platform third-party hardware manufacturers can plug their trackers directly into it rather than building and maintaining their own crowd-sourced infrastructure. That's a structurally different offer than what Samsung's SmartThings network provides.
The distinction is sharper than a raw phone count comparison. Samsung isn't only facing a scale disadvantage against Apple; it's competing against a network that actively invites the hardware makers Samsung is trying to outpace. A Tile-category manufacturer that plugs into Google's Find My Device gets access to the same 3 billion device pool as Google's own hardware. A Samsung SmartTag connected only to Samsung phones does not, regardless of how good its UWB chip is.
The Bluetooth SIG filing for the SmartTag2 confirmed SmartThings would remain the required app through that cycle, The Verge reported. Nothing in the sources reviewed for this article indicates a shift in that approach since. Whether Samsung has quietly renegotiated that arrangement for a next-generation model isn't known but the regulatory filing will show it before Samsung says anything publicly.
What the filing will actually reveal and what to do with it
The SmartTag2 launched nearly three years ago and has held up well. Its battery life remains competitive against newer trackers, the software integration is tight within the Galaxy ecosystem, and the UWB precision finding genuinely works when the tag is in range. What it can't change retroactively is the network it runs on, and that limitation becomes visible the moment a tag ends up somewhere that Samsung phones aren't.
A Bluetooth SIG entry naming SmartThings as the required app for a successor would indicate another capable Galaxy-ecosystem product well-suited for users already deep in Samsung's hardware lineup, and constrained for anyone who wants the best real-world recovery odds across a wider range of environments. That's not a knock on the product; it's a description of its ceiling.
A listing pointing toward Google's Find My Device network would indicate something structurally different: a Samsung SmartTag release positioned to compete with AirTag not just on hardware polish, but on the metric that matters most when something is actually gone. Wider network access doesn't just improve recovery odds it changes the product's value proposition for non-Samsung Android users who currently have little reason to consider a SmartTag.
Improved battery life and tighter UWB are the expected outcome of any hardware refresh, and they'll almost certainly arrive in whatever Samsung announces next. Neither addresses the network gap on its own. The regulatory filing trail will surface before Samsung's marketing does, and the app requirement field will answer the important question before anyone takes a stage.
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