Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
Have you ever tried finding your Android telephone whereas it is shut down?
4 votes
Check 1: Pixel 9 Professional vs Moto Tag vs iPhone 13 Professional Max
To check out Google’s offline-finding characteristic, I needed to put my Pixel 9 Professional up towards some controls. I used the iPhone 13 Professional Max as an Apple Discover My controller and the Moto Tag as a comparability level for Google’s Discover My System community. In any case, if the complete community wasn’t working as anticipated, then I couldn’t blame offline discovering for not delivering an correct location.
At 3 AM, proper earlier than heading to mattress, I turned off the 2 telephones with loads of battery left (although this could work even when the principle battery is depleted) and took the battery out of the Moto Tag. The following morning, my husband slipped them into his backpack and went to work. He put the Moto Tag battery again in round 11 AM, saved the 2 telephones powered off, and I began checking the place we had been at.
The iPhone had been pinging its location all morning and was final seen two minutes in the past proper subsequent to my husband’s work. The Moto Tag took a couple of minutes to catch up, however shortly confirmed the same location. The Pixel 9 Professional? Final seen at 2:56 AM at house once I final powered it off. It hadn’t up to date its location as soon as within the 9 hours since. Remember that my husband carries a Pixel 7 Professional with the Discover My System community energetic and collaborating in all areas; he doesn’t have an iPhone.
I saved checking all through the afternoon, and the scenario remained the identical. Clearly, Google’s Discover My System community was working, however one thing was stopping the Pixel 9 Professional from displaying up.
Come 6:40 PM, when my husband was on his method again house, each the powered-off iPhone and the Moto Tag had been sharing his up to date location, whereas the Pixel 9 Professional stubbornly caught to “final seen 2:56 AM.” Even by the point my husband was house and the Pixel 9 Professional was actually again subsequent to me, it refused to replace its location. It took till 8:15 PM for a miracle to occur and the Discover My System app to point out me that the telephone was seen at house.
It up to date its location as soon as extra through the night, then went off the map once more. By comparability, the iPhone saved updating its location each couple of minutes till ~2 AM, i.e., it accomplished the promised 24 hours of offline discovering that Apple mentions in its description of the characteristic.
The primary check was a complete catastrophe and my telephone wasn’t positioned till an hour after it was again subsequent to me.
I repeated this check the subsequent day with related outcomes and that is the place it occurred to me that my Pixel 9 Professional is operating the Android 16 beta. I couldn’t discover a filed bug round this concern, so I wasn’t certain if it was a identified downside, a novel downside with my unit, or a basic discover when offline concern, no matter beta software program or not. However I didn’t wish to dismiss Google’s efforts based mostly on a telephone operating beta firmware, so I carried on my exams with a Pixel 9 Professional Fold on Android 15 steady.
Extra exams: Pixel 9 Professional Fold on Android 15 steady
To start out off, I wanted a fast check to make it possible for the Pixel 9 Professional Fold would behave as anticipated when powered off. I powered it off on 6:22 PM one night earlier than heading out to Paris and packed it in my very own backpack. It by no means left my facet, so I wasn’t counting on every other telephone or community to search out it — simply my very own major telephone, the Pixel 9 Professional XL.
That fast check was successful. The Fold was detected close to me all through the night, till 9 PM once I headed again house. So the characteristic works, in concept — at the very least when the telephone doesn’t go away my facet. As soon as once more, I began blaming Android 16 beta for my early failure on the Pixel 9 Professional and was wanting ahead to testing issues once more.
For my third check, I turned off the Pixel 9 Professional Fold at 11 PM and despatched it with my husband once more the subsequent day, March 28 (the date is essential). I saved checking Discover My System to see if it had detected the telephone, nevertheless it saved insisting it was final seen at house all through the day. I swear, at this level, I assumed I used to be going insane. How might the telephone be “final seen,” i.e., actively updating its location at house, within the japanese suburbs, but in addition be bodily with my husband midway throughout Paris? I don’t know. I actually requested him to double-check twice that he had the Fold with him, and never another telephone.
The telephone was ‘seen’ at house regardless that it was with my husband, and the placement corrected two days later… by some means.
By this level, I had simply given up on making an attempt to see if Discover My System works with powered-off telephones. I turned off the app, didn’t verify something once more, and simply went on with my life. I had different exams and extra essential issues to do than to maintain giving second possibilities to a characteristic that doesn’t work. A number of days later, as I noticed the powered-off Pixel 9 Professional Fold at my desk, I assumed, “Hey, see if something modified with that location.” And that is when… You’d assume I used to be mendacity if I didn’t have a screenshot for this.
Okay, so enable me to clarify. On March 28, when the telephone was really with my husband in the course of Paris, it instructed me it was “seen” at house all through the day. However two days later, Discover My System tells me that the telephone was really seen two days earlier at 12:12 PM in Paris, proper the place it really, bodily was. What occurred there, why the overlap, why the Schrödinger cat scenario, and why the buggy location whereas checking, and the proper location later? I don’t know.
If I had actually misplaced my telephone and never given it to the secure arms of my husband, I might’ve by no means been capable of finding it. Or by the point I did, it will’ve been too late.
Additionally, discover that the final time the telephone’s location was up to date was practically 13 hours after it was powered off — removed from the iPhone’s 24 hours of energetic location.
You possibly can inform that by then, I used to be greater than annoyed with this little experiment, however I made a decision to provide it yet another go, only for the pleasure (learn: torture) of all of it. I powered off my Pixel 9 Professional Fold at 8:14 PM on April 10 and took it with me whereas purchasing for new backyard tools. I knew that, as soon as once more, I used to be giving it an unfair benefit by retaining subsequent to me, however I needed to see if it’d bug out even with that.
The primary couple of minutes had been peachy. The telephone was detected close to me — I might even see the final battery stage and operator it was related to. However half an hour later, the placement stopped getting up to date regardless that it was actually in my backpack. I wasn’t in a distant location both, in the event you’re questioning concerning the privateness facet of Discover My System; I went to an enormous division retailer, took a crowded bus, and waited in the course of a busy sq. for one more bus. For the subsequent 4 hours, till previous midnight, the final seen location was 8:28 PM, and Discover My System wouldn’t inform me that the telephone was nonetheless close to me, regardless that I had already returned house with it in my backpack.
Is it simply me? Perhaps I’m cursed.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
In any case of this, I reached out to my colleague Mishaal Rahman who’s been masking Android 15’s offline discovering characteristic because it first confirmed up as a teaser and proper till it was introduced after which rolled out to different telephones. I requested him if he’d really examined it totally and the reply was that he did a number of occasions, it labored for him, and he’s seen suggestions from different people who mentioned it really works, too.
Everybody retains telling me that the Discover My System community has improved loads too, and regardless that I’ve seen that, I nonetheless run throughout extra reliability points than I’d like for a community that’s supposed to assist me discover my misplaced objects in a bind.
I’ve appeared for 1,000,000 explanations and excuses, however actually, if my telephone is correct subsequent to me, it ought to be detected close by, should not it?
Perhaps it’s a weaker community round Paris, I inform myself. Perhaps it’s my telephones, although I’ve clearly tried this on two Pixels already. Perhaps it’s Android 16 beta on the Pixel 9 Professional the place I first examined it out. Perhaps it’s the privateness facet stopping the community from updating the placement of a tool when there aren’t many individuals close by. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
However the actuality is that, in my final check on April 10, my Pixel 9 Professional Fold on Android 15 steady stopped updating its location fifteen minutes after being turned off, regardless that it was nonetheless in my backpack. (I’m not even going to say the entire March 28 head-scratching discrepancy of home-not-home, adopted by an accurate location two days later.) No beta, community, or account concern might clarify the April 10 unreliable conduct. It’s supposed to simply be Bluetooth, from the powered-off Fold to my very own, major, turned-on Pixel 9 Professional XL. If that easy hyperlink isn’t working, can I belief it out on this planet with a thief?
