Google reportedly working on Find My Device feature for turned-off phones

By Shilpa Annie Joseph, Official Reporter
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American multinational technology company, Google is reportedly working on a feature that will enable the Find My Device feature to work even when the concerned smartphone is turned off.

This feature is similar to Apple AirTags or the Find My feature available on Apple products. The Mountain View-based tech giant is planning to release this feature soon, as per the reports.

The report adds that “the company is said to be working on creating a massive network of all Android devices, featuring optional support or UWB, locating tags similar to Apple AirTags, and even including Google’s own tag codenamed “grogu” and others.”

According to the reports, “Although it is not certain if the feature will be supported on existing Pixel devices, it is speculated that the Pixel 8 model will launch with support for this purported feature. The feature will be called Pixel Power-off Finder, at least on Google’s Pixel devices.”

Further, a new Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) definition called “hardware.google.bluetooth.power_off_finder” is included in the source code. “Precomputed Finger Network keys will be transferred to the device’s Bluetooth chip, which will help the chip remain active even when the phone is turned off, according to the code comments,” as per the reports.

Recently, Google extended its Nearby Share feature to Windows. The feature was already available on Android phones and Chromebooks. It allows seamless transfer between two devices, much like Apple’s Airdrop feature.

“To use the Nearby Share function, both concerned devices sharing and receiving a file must be signed into the same Google account to accept file transfers automatically,” as per the reports.

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