I lose something everywhere I go. At home, that’s usually annoying more than anything. When I’m traveling, though, misplacing my keys, bag, or even my luggage can turn into a much bigger problem very quickly.

After spending far more time than I’d like to admit retracing my steps through airports, hotel rooms, booths at trade shows, and unfamiliar cities, I’ve started paying a lot more attention to the little things I pack that can make traveling slightly less chaotic.

Most of them are nice to have. This $29 accessory, though, has very quickly become something I don’t think I’ll travel without again.

The Chipolo POP is my new favorite travel tracker

My new travel essential

You’ve likely heard of Apple’s AirTags, Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTags, or even Tile’s lineup of trackers. Bluetooth trackers are hardly a new concept at this point, and they all promise roughly the same thing: attach one to something you don’t want to lose, and your phone can help you track it down when you inevitably do.

Chipolo is a Slovenian company that’s been making Bluetooth trackers since 2013, and its current lineup consists of three products: POP, CARD, and LOOP. The POP is the smallest, most budget-friendly, and most traditional of the three, with the familiar circular design you’d expect from a tracker meant to live on your keys, bag, or luggage. It retails for $29, which is the exact same starting price as Apple’s AirTag. This naturally begs the question: why would you buy the POP instead?

While the sections below will end up answering that question, let’s quickly talk specs first. The Chipolo POP measures 38.8 mm across and just 6.6 mm thick, weighs around 8.7 grams, and comes with IP55 dust and water resistance. Inside is a replaceable CR2032 battery that’s rated to last around a year, while its Bluetooth range stretches up to 300 feet under ideal conditions.

The POP is available in six colors: Blue, Yellow, Red, Green, Black, and White. I really like how bold most of the options are, especially compared to the much more understated look of an AirTag. Beyond just looking more fun, the different colors also make it easier to tell multiple trackers apart at a glance if you have one on your keys, another in your luggage, and another on your backpack.

The Chipolo POP doesn’t lock you into one ecosystem

No ecosystem loyalty required

As a tech journalist who is obsessed with trying out new devices, I switch between phones far more often than the average person probably does. This brings me to the first major reason I prefer the Chipolo POP over an AirTag or Samsung’s Galaxy SmartTag: it doesn’t lock me into one ecosystem.

While Chipolo’s previous models were split between Apple-specific Spot trackers and Google-specific Point trackers, the POP works with either Apple’s Find My network or Google’s Find Hub using the exact same hardware. You do have to choose one at a time, so it can’t simultaneously tap into both networks, but you’re free to reset it and switch between them if you move from an iPhone to an Android phone or vice versa!

The POP’s speaker is much louder than an AirTag’s

Good luck not hearing this

The entire purpose of a Bluetooth tracker is to help you find something you’ve lost, so being able to actually hear it once you’re nearby matters quite a bit. This is another area where the Chipolo POP stands out. The speakers are really, really, really loud.

Chipolo rates the POP’s built-in speaker at around 120 dB, and in practice, it’s ridiculously hard to miss when it starts ringing. That’s especially useful when the tracker is buried underneath clothes in a suitcase, stuffed somewhere inside a backpack, or hiding in a hotel room.

Apple doesn’t publish an equivalent decibel figure for the AirTag, so there isn’t a neat spec-for-spec comparison here. The second-generation AirTag does have a louder speaker than the original, but Apple only says it’s 50% louder. While I haven’t gone hands-on with the second-gen AirTag yet, I remember the first-generation model being noticeably quieter than the POP.

While we’re talking sound, another small thing I appreciate is that Chipolo lets you change the POP’s ringtone through its app. AirTags don’t offer the same level of customization, and while this is hardly a make-or-break feature, it makes the POP feel a little more personal and easier to distinguish if you have more than one tracker.

One tiny design choice makes the POP much more convenient

Something I’ve always appreciated in accessories is versatility. I like using products that can be repurposed easily instead of needing a separate accessory for every little use case, and that’s where the built-in keyring hole on the Chipolo POP makes a big difference.

It’s a tiny detail, but it means I can clip it directly onto my keys, backpack, luggage handle, or pretty much anything else with a loop, without buying a separate holder first! Before I leave for the airport, I can drop the POP into my luggage, and once I’ve checked in and don’t need to keep tabs on my suitcase anymore, I can simply move it onto my backpack or keys for the rest of the trip.

An AirTag can obviously do the same job as a tracker, but attaching one to something usually means buying a separate holder first. With the POP, that flexibility is built into the tracker itself.

Chipolo’s trackers have a few tricks other trackers don’t

It does more than track

Just as I mentioned above, I love myself an accessory that can do more than one thing, and the Chipolo POP has a few surprisingly useful extras beyond simply helping me find whatever I’ve misplaced.

Similar to how I’m always losing stuff when traveling, I’m also constantly putting my phone down somewhere and forgetting where I left it. It looks like I’m not the only person with this problem, because Chipolo built a way to solve that into the POP too. You can double-press the tracker to make your phone ring (extremely loud, just by the way). The best part is that it rings even if your phone is on silent, and given mine is on silent 24/7, that’s probably the only way this feature would ever be useful to me.

The POP also doubles as a remote camera shutter through the Chipolo app, letting you prop your phone up and snap a photo by pressing the tracker instead of setting a timer and sprinting into frame. Does a Bluetooth tracker need this? Not really. Is it a nice little extra to have when you’re traveling, especially solo, and trying to take photos of yourself? Absolutely.

To use both of these features, you do need to have Chipolo’s app installed. I do wish the remote camera shutter worked with my phone’s native camera app rather than requiring me to use the camera built into Chipolo’s app, though.

So, if you’re on the lookout for a Bluetooth tracker that not only does its job well but can also follow you between ecosystems, clip onto just about anything, and squeeze in a few genuinely useful extras along the way, the Chipolo POP is ridiculously easy to recommend.