Nearby, separated, lost?

[Skowt]

I'm a bit confused on the device scanner script which will log out if a device is nearby or separated? What do these two states mean, more-so the latter? What defines a separated device?

I tried looking at the docs but they weren't very helpful: https://docs.mikealmel.ooo/FindMy.py/autoapi/findmy/scanner/scanner/index.html

At the same time, is it possible to detect devices that have been marked as Lost in iCloud? I know Apple devices broadcast keys and those can be used to track lost devices but are they also detectable with FindMy.py?

[malmeloo]

A device in nearby state has recently been in contact with its owner device (i.e. any device attached to the owner's Apple Account). Tags in nearby mode limit the information they broadcast over bluetooth, so these tags are not included in the Offline Finding (OF) network. This is also not necessary when you're using Apple's ecosystem, because your device will simply record when it last connected with your tag and show that as the tag's location. However, it also means that this library cannot see the tag's location while it is in nearby mode. To mitigate this somewhat, the library includes an offline bluetooth scanner which allows you to verify whether your tag is nearby.

Tags in separated mode have been separated from their owner device for some time, which activates their full OF capabilities. Nearby devices will start generating location reports for these tags, and they will be queryable using this library. You can also still check whether it's nearby using the bluetooth scanner.

I'm not so sure about "lost" devices, I think this system works out-of-band (so it bypasses OF and goes through iCloud instead). But I think OF mode should still be activated for such tags, so you should be able to query their locations.

The docs are a bit lacking indeed, sorry for that. You can check out the examples directory in the repository to find out how you can query tag locations and use the scanner.