Damn, that's a mighty fine idea bingo. Never thought of that.

In George's revised rough draft, he had the jedi say the TF doesn't have long distance tracking and Obi-Wan then suggests, "only the republic does", suggesting he was worried there might be a conspiracy inside the republic to help the TF in their pursuit.

This takes place right after the Sio-Bibble transmission aboard the queen's ship.

Now it is Qui-Gon saying it was bait to establish a connection trace.

So what if we now have that dialogue and then the heores discard 3po's coverings and then they find a tracking device and they're like "oh shit. We're running out of time".

That could up the ante for the heroes to get off Tatooine/Geonosis/whatever before they are found.

Kinda mimics the original SW with tracking devices without being too copycat and also answers the question: how the hell did Maul find them?

The official line is Amidala-decoy answering the transmission from Bibble was enough to establish a trace but that's not really credible especially following Obi-Wan's "send no reply of any kind" command.

I like your tracking device idea alot.