Signal to locate other devices appeared in beta
Google may be turning Android phones into a heavy intelligence capable of finding lost devices, similar to Apple's Find My network, according to an analysis by 9to5Google. A toggle for the feature has appeared in a beta version of Google Play Services, with an icon indicating the phones' ability to help identify other devices, suggesting Android phones will be easy to find soon.
According to the Google support page, the current Find My Device system can only find phones that are turned on, have data or a Wi-Fi signal, and have location services enabled. At this early stage, it's not clear which, if any, of these limitations the paging network feature - apparently called Spot - can solve, but when you're looking for a lost phone, it's a good idea to get any.
Google has other projects that involve using a network of Android phones - notably an earthquake detection feature. While the app is different, the basic concept is likely to be very similar: there are over 3 billion Android devices active, which is a huge crowd to source information, whether it's accelerometer data, or a misplaced phone location.
9to5Google has found a setting that would allow users to turn off the feature, making it not help their phones locate other devices. Due to limited information, it's not clear if the Find My Device network will be able to find things other than phones, like Apple's Find My network or Samsung's Galaxy Find network. Of course, since this unpacked code is from a beta release, you may never see these changes as an actual public release.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the potential feature.
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