alt Hacker NewsI mean, airtags are doing radio stuff at a regular cadence. I've noticed they update once every 15 minutes, so they are turning the radio on to do whatever BLE triangulation they need to do 96 times per day. That's milliamps over at least a few milliseconds to wake the radio, do whatever triangulation is needed. It's amazing that they last that long considering what they are doing. I think they are using Nordic NRF54 internally so it's testament to the power efficiency those chips are capable of.
Airtags don't do any triangulation. They just send out a BLE beacon periodically to any iPhone within earshot, and also spend some time listening for new instructions that almost never happen.
They have no idea where they are or what their airtag/BLE neighbors, if present, are doing. They don't grok GNSS or wifi. There's nothing for them to triangulate or trilaterate or tri-anything when they're just sitting there.
So yes: They are indeed pretty tidy about energy consumption. They accomplish this in large part by being very simple in normal operation and leaving the heavier lifting to the world of iPhones with relatively enormous batteries that get recharged ~every day.