~ MamakTalk ~: Android May Get Its Own Crowd-Sourced Find My Device Network

2021年6月21日星期一

Android May Get Its Own Crowd-Sourced Find My Device Network

Google might be taking a cue from Apple and developing a crowd-sourced network of Android devices for locating lost things. An APK teardown of Google Play Services version 21.24.13, which rolled out on the Play Store recently, revealed strings related to a new Android feature called “Find My Device network.”

You might be aware that Google already offers a “Find My Device” app for Android smartphones. However, it requires an internet connection to work. The lost device also must be signed in to your Google Account in order to be found. As such, if your device is offline, you will not be able to find its current location.

Apple, meanwhile, makes the devices broadcast Bluetooth signals even when they’re offline. Any other nearby iOS device can then pick up this signal and relay the location of the lost device to the cloud. This added step allows users to find their lost devices even if they are powered off. Samsung’s SmartTag, or perhaps Apple’s AirTag, also uses the same crowd-sourced network of devices to locate lost things, even those that don’t have an internet connection.

Google might now be looking to build a similar crowd-sourced network of Android devices. After all, over three billion devices worldwide run on its platform. Most of those are smartphones and come with Google Mobile Services (GMS) and Google Play Services preinstalled (except in China). So finding a lost Android device could be a lot easier.

Find My Device network is not live yet

As said before, this upcoming Android feature was spotted in development in an APK teardown of the latest version of Google Play Services and is not yet live for users. However, the folks over at 9to5Google could enable the new feature on their device. A new “Find My Device network” menu appears in Settings with a toggle to turn it on/off. It’s distinct from the existing “Find My Device” toggle. So it could be possible to exclude your phone from participating in that crowd-sourced network to relay signals when someone is trying to locate their lost devices.

“Allows your phone to help locate your and other people’s devices,” the description for the new feature reads. It’s unclear whether Google will offer this support only to Android-powered devices like smartphones, tablets, and watches, or it also plans to make its own dedicated object trackers like Samsung’s SmartTag and Apple’s AirTag.

According to the report, Google could also launch a dedicated app called Spot for this feature. This app could help locate things on the network more precisely. All this suggests that a Made by Google object tracker is on the way soon. You can expect more information about this new Android feature to surface in the coming weeks.

Google Find My Device network Android