How we make our AirTag Key Rings

It's April 20th, 2021, and part of the team has already finished work. Today, the assembled team is sitting together in the workshop and looking at the screen above the conference table.

At precisely 7 p.m., Tim Cook takes the virtual stage, and the Apple keynote begins. These events are extremely important to us. Of course, we usually have a vague idea of ​​what to expect in Apple's live stream, but Tim always has a surprise ready for us, to which we want to react quickly with a fitting BandWerk accessory.

Rumors about AirTags have been floating around for several years. A tiny Bluetooth tracker that ensures we always find our keys and other essential things around. We expected the presentation in 2019 and 2020. So far, there has been nothing concrete about exact dimensions and shapes.

Now it happens: today, Apple is finally presenting its smart item trackers. They are flat, round, and do not have their own eyelet to attach them directly to a key ring. For us as an accessory manufacturer, this is, of course, greatly appreciated. (Thanks, Apple!)

Despite all the joy of the opportunity, that also means we get to work right after the keynote.

First of all, it would be helpful to have a real AirTag on hand. However, this isn't easy because the products won't be available within the next two weeks, and they can be pre-ordered at the end of the week at the earliest. We decide to provisionally make a 3D model of the AirTags and create some units for prototyping in the 3D printer.

At the same time, we check whether we already have leather in stock that would be suitable for producing the AirTags tags, decide on a vegetable-tanned and polished smooth leather, which we also use for the production of our AirPods cases.

The design process can begin.

After we have decided on an approach, correct cutting patterns are created from the first rough product sketches in drawing software, which we can then feed our laser cutter. The laser is a precious device for prototyping because it enables us to produce individual parts that can be used quickly.

As soon as the design team has finished their part, the project runs two floors down into the hands of Daniel, our prototype builder. In total, he will build five or six different prototypes over the next few days. Different leather and thread thicknesses, edge colors, and metal eyelets are used.

The next Friday, we decided on a final prototype that should now go into series production.

For productivity reasons and to be able to guarantee consistent quality, the prototyping process cannot be transferred one-by-one to series production.

In the next few days, we will be converting our machines to series production and having punches and stencils made. We assume that we can produce around 150 AirTag keyrings a day. As it turned out later, that was probably a bit too optimistic - at least for the first few days.

Despite some adversity, the first finished key rings leave our production facility on Friday, April 30th, ten days after the AirTags were presented.

We have had two exhausting weeks in which we added a great product to our portfolio that we are very proud of.