The emergence of Bluetooth trackers has made it much easier to find your bag or keys when you lose them, but it has also put stealthy tracking tools in the hands of people who can abuse them. Apple and Google have implemented unknown Bluetooth tracker alerts to let you know if there is an unknown Bluetooth tracker nearby, and now, as part of a new update, Google is allowing Android users to locate these trackers as well.
This feature is one of two new tools Google is adding to Find My Device-compatible trackers. The first, Temporarily Pause Location, is something you should enable when you first receive a notification from an unknown tracker. It blocks your phone from updating your location with trackers for 24 hours. The second feature, Find Nearby, will help you determine where the tracker is if you can’t see or hear it well.
When you tap on an unknown tracker alert, you can see a map of where the tracker was last seen moving with you. From there, you can play the sound to see if you can find it (Google says the owner won’t receive a notification). If you can’t find it, Find Nearby will connect your phone to the tracker via Bluetooth and display a shape that fills in the closer you get to it.
This tool is identical to what Google offers for finding trackers and devices you own, but importantly, you don’t need to use Find My Device or own a tracker to use it. Like Google’s original notification feature, any device running Android 6.0 or higher can safely work with unknown Bluetooth trackers.
The extension of the Find Nearby feature seems to be the last step Google needed to take to curb the abuse of Bluetooth trackers, as Apple is already doing with its Precision Finding tool for AirTags. The companies released a joint standard for detecting unknown Bluetooth trackers, whether you’re using Android or iOS, in May 2024, following the launch of Google’s Find My Device network in April. Prior to that, Google and Apple offered their own methods of dealing with unknown trackers to prevent trackers from being used for anything from robbery to stalking.
