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Google’s Find My Device feature can now be used indoors (sometimes)

Popular buildings like airports and museums will be available at first.

Find my device update google
Image: Google

Ever left your phone in a mall’s food court or forgotten to pick it back up when you were recharging in the airport on the way to that convention? Let’s face it, for all our progress and technological innovation – we’re still pretty absent-minded at times.

So much so, that there’s a whole industry dedicated to helping us remember all the things in daily life, from Bluetooth trackers to GPS-enabled devices. Those don’t always work very well, as Bluetooth has limited range and GPS doesn’t really work inside.

Find My Device is getting an indoor update

Google is hoping to change that a bit with its latest update to Find My Device.

Google introduced its Find My Device app in May of last year to help combat lost devices. Now, the app has been updated to be better at finding your device inside. Find My Device has always let you ring your Android device which usually is enough to find your phone inside a house or smaller location. That’s great, but what if you’re in a larger building like a museum or shopping mall?

Google’s solution to this problem is to show where your device was on an indoor map of the building, hopefully giving you enough information to find it. The search giant has been working on capturing the layouts of large public places like airports, stores, and malls for use in Google Maps and now it’s using that data to help locate lost devices.

It’s not a complete solution

This is definitely a step in the right direction, although it won’t help you if Google doesn’t have the layout of the building you left your phone in.

High-traffic buildings like museums or popular shopping malls should be in the tool but if you’ve lost your phone in a smaller place you might not get any extra help from the app.

What do you think of the update? Do you use Find My Device? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.

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