We need an open source smart tag. I recently researched how the landscape has changed and, as an android user, still nothing good in available. I’m not sure if I remember right, but Google’s find my device was supposed to be open source or at least open spec? Might be worth looking into how easy it would be to code a lil firmware for this network myself. As much as I’d love a tag for things I cannot lose, the current options are throwing money away for no actual useful tracking (Samsung), forfeit your privacy (Tile, perhaps others), sell your soul (Apple).
Other comment have gone way more in-depth, but there’s also a difference between using commercial VPNs and ones you set up yourself. I have a few private VPNs set up on servers I physically own in different countries and that offers different protections than just using NordVPN.