Find My Device Now Lets You Locate Your Lost Android Smartphone Even When It's Turned Off – Mobile Watch

Android smartphones have a feature called “Find My Device” that lets you locate your device even if you lose it. You can search for it using an app on your smartphone or tablet, or from a dedicated website on your computer.

The update was announced this spring, and you can now look for new services like Bluetooth tags (tags to prevent lost items).

Then, in June, a software update (called Features Drops) that added new features to Google's Pixel series made it possible to search the Pixel 8 series while it was offline or turned off.

Setting up is very simple. Go to your smartphone's Settings menu, select “Security & Privacy” → “Find My Device”, and turn on “Use Find My Device”.

Find offline devices

You have selected “Use network in all regions”.

Then, in the “Scan for offline devices” list, select either “Use network only in high traffic areas” or “Use network in all areas.”

It's scary to try to lose your smartphone, so I turned off the Pixe 8 Pro and searched for it using the Find My Device app from another device.

After that, the “Last detected location” will be displayed. In other words, you can see that the location information is when the power is off.

When I turn it off (power off), I see a message in English at the bottom of the screen that says: “You can find this smartphone even when you're offline with Find My Device.”

In this experiment, the “final revelation” remains even after the passage of time…

What happens if you pick up the device while it's off? Sorry, I couldn't fully test it this time, but after a quick scan, it seems to be undetectable.

Now, behind “Find Offline Devices” is a mechanism created by Google that records the device’s location information. This is expressed as “Network” in the menu.

This means that the Android device and the anti-lost tag communicate via Bluetooth, and the current location is recorded in the cloud. For example, most Bluetooth tags do not have GPS function, but when connected to an Android smartphone, their current location is recorded. Of course, this connection is encrypted, and no one else can see the current location of your device.

The “Search for offline devices” menu also has an option for “whether or not you want to join the network to find things.”

Of course, a similar mechanism is also available on the iPhone. It's a feature you'll want to know about in advance, just in case.