Android Find My Device could soon get the best Apple Find My feature with a new ‘compass’ tool
UWB support on the way
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TheAndroid Find My Devicenetwork has been given a significant upgrade this year, with support for offline gadgets and crowd-sourced device tracking – and it looks as though another newApple-inspired feature is on the way.
As per9to5Google, hidden code in the latest Find My Device app for Android points to a new ‘compass’ feature for more precise device tracking. It’ll presumably show a compass on screen, and give you messages like “turn left”, “turn right”, and “the device is behind you” as you hunt down your lost item.
This is almost certainly going to be used with ultra-wideband (UWB) devices, like thePixel Watch 3, which can be located with a high degree of accuracy. Most gadgets will use GPS, if they have it, to report their whereabouts – but UWB technology makes it even easier to find something inside a room.
If you’re thinking this sounds familiar, it’s the same tech available through Apple’s Find My network – UWB was added to the iPhone back in 2019, with theiPhone 11. You might have seenthe Apple advertwhere Boba Fett uses UWB to track down his friends.
Catching up
For now, the code doesn’t do anything – the 9to5Google team were unable to get the functionality working with aMoto Tag. However,Googlehaspreviously promisedthat Find My Device upgrades are on the way, and this looks to be one of them.
This also matches up withother code snippetswe’ve spotted hinting at UWB support, and it looks as though there might besome augmented realityfeatures involved as well – so you might be able to navigate to your lost device in the same way you can navigate to a destinationusing Live ViewinGoogle Maps.
Google is lagging behind when it comes to UWB support, which has been in Apple andSamsungphones for years now. The tech is in thePixel Watch3, but not in the standardPixel 8orPixel 9handsets – you need to upgrade to the Pro models to get UWB (see ourGoogle Pixel 9 Pro reviewfor one option).
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As yet, Google hasn’t said anything officially about UWB support on the newly improved Android Find My Device network, but it shouldn’t be too far off now. In the past few months, the upgraded service has beenrolling out to more regions.
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Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you’ll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.
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