Lost Android devices could soon be as easy to locate as iPhones
The power of the crowd
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
If you’ve ever lost yourAndroid phoneyou’ve probably turned toGoogle’s Find My Device service, and this can be a slick way to locate your handset – as long as it’s signed into your Google account and has an internet connection. But soon, you might be able to use a crowdsourced network of Android devices to locate your missing gadgets without that.
That’s becauseXDA Developershas found reference to a ‘Find My Device network’ in code for the latestGoogle PlayServices beta. There was also a string that reads ‘Allows your phone to help locate your and other people’s devices.’
It sounds then like Google is building a Find My Device network that would allow other Android devices out in the world to locate your device if it’s nearby – probably over Bluetooth – and send the location to you.
In or out
From the wording it sounds like you’d need to opt in, but that it would be an all or nothing situation, in that you wouldn’t be able to leverage this device network to track your device if you didn’t also agree to allowing your phone to help locate other lost devices, and vice versa.
In any case, this crowdsourced network sounds a lot like whatAppleis doing with its Find My iPhone service, and withAirTags, which rely almost entirely on being nearby to an iDevice. It would also allow Google to launch a rival device to the AirTag if it chose to, so you’d be able to locate anything the tracker was attached to.
But there are even more Android devices out in the world than there are iPhones, so Google has the potential to build the most powerful and robust device finding network yet. Of course, whether it will remains to be seen, as while the presence of this code likely means Google is exploring the idea, it doesn’t guarantee the Find My Device network will ever see the light of day.
If it does though, perhaps we’ll get some official news about it in upcomingAndroid 12betas, or in the final Android 12 release, which is expected in or around September.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
ViaGSMArena
James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.
We might have our first look at the long-rumored Samsung tri-fold
A newly reported iPhone phenomenon could be bad news for both cops and robbers
ICYMI: the week’s 7 biggest tech stories from Kindle Colorsoft yellowing woes to our PS5 Pro review
