I tracked my lost AirPod to a parking space and found a completely dead one that wasn't mine on the exact spot
Context: This happened on my birthday 3 years ago. We drove to Mississippi to lodge and gamble at the Golden Nugget. I had never been to a casino before, and it was my 31st birthday.
I apologize if this ends up being a long post, but ill try and cut to the chase.
My wife and I arrived at The Golden Nugget around 4:30pm on a Thursday. I keep my airpods on my keychain and the latch is loose. I didnt know it at the time, but if I slung my keys hard enough, the case would fling open and my airpods would slide out. Thats exactly what I did and there is no other explanation for how I lost it. I was really bummed because I had just taken a Delta-8 gummy and wanted to go outside the casino, watch a couple videos and smoke my vape. I knew I had an hour max until the gummy was going to hit so I went right to work. My job has been IT since the start, so I had a lot of experience working with issues like this. I opened the Find My app and tried making a sound around the room. I didnt hear anything, and I knew I wasnt going to hear anything outside or in the casino, so I went with a different approach. I cant remember how many apps I tried, including the Find My feature that leads you to your bluetooth devices. The one that worked the best was something like Wonderfind. At this point, I have retraced my steps one hundred times from when we arrived up until we got into the room. The casino staff probably thought I was a weirdo for staring at the floor while walking in and out of the casino.
This is exactly our movements:
- Pulled into parking space far away from the correct door.
- Once we checked into the hotel, we walked back to the car and parked closer so we wouldnt have to carry our stuff so far.
- We walked in the main lobby of the casino, sat at 4 machines for a while, I got my wife 2 drinks from a bar, watched some blackjack, and then headed up to the room where my wife went to bed and I was prepping for my relaxation time. She wanted to go to sleep a bit earlier that night, so it was about 8pm by now.
Cut back to me retracing my steps, looking under machines, trying to get a faint signal of the airpod. Eventually, I get a signal! Its dinging faintly and I keep losing it, but after figuring out the correct direction to walk in, the signal started getting stronger and stronger. When I was essentially on top of it, I noticed that it took me to the first place we parked. I had forgotten that we parked in a different area when we first got there. I got really excited, but the app wasnt telling me exactly where it was. So I started looking under and in-between cars, especially in the spots around where we parked. There was a car in the spot we had parked in earlier, so I got on my stomach and took a look under. I didnt see anything, but as I was getting up, I noticed something on the white parking line. It was A left apple earbud. I immediately knew it wasnt mine since I had Pros and have never owned the regular ones (pros fit better, i got weird shaped ears). The thing that bothers me though is that when I checked the app again for a signal, it had completely vanished. I walked back and forth through that parking deck so many times, my wife ended up calling me at 2am worried sick that something had happened to me. I explained to her what happened (including the part about taking a gummy) and she was as confused as I was. I called it a night and took the other airpod with me to remind myself that this whole thing actually happened because WTF.
Edit for missing details:
- I lost the left earbud
- My earbud was fully charged and could only have been out of the case, unused for 4-5 hours. They last longer when they are being actively used, so the likelihood of it being dead is low.
- The earbud I found looked like it had been there for quite some time. It was scuffed up with dirt deep into the plastic. It blended in so well to the white paint, that I dont doubt its been there for quite some time. The likelihood of it still having battery is low.
- The app was WunderFind and the signal it was leading me to was the apple pro earbud. I knew it was the correct signal because I tested it with my other earbud and it worked exactly the same.