Samsung announces SmartThings Find, powered by Bluetooth and UWB
Today Samsung announced SmartThings Find as a free service to help you find your Galaxy phone, tablet, smartwatch, and earbuds. SmartThings Find uses Bluetooth and the new ultra-wideband technology present on its latest devices.
Apple's Find My service has helped our family recover lost iPhones and Google's Find My Device is regularly used by my wife to find her missing phone left in some room of the house. SmartThings Find uses Bluetooth low energy and UWB to help you find your gear. Samsung implements AR with maps and sounds to guide you to your lost device.
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Six million users in Korea, the UK, and the US tested out the service via an early access test of the service. The service is available through the latest version of the SmartThings app and only works with Galaxy devices.
Even if your device is no longer connected to a mobile network or your Galaxy phone, the SmartThings Find service is able to help navigate you to your lost device. Through the SmartThings app, you can now opt in to help others locate their lost devices. Once a Galaxy device has been offline for 30 minutes, it sends a BLE signal that can be received by other devices that are not even directly paired or associated with that lost device.
Don't worry, all SmartThings Find user data is encrypted and securely protected so your lost device is only revealed to the owner and not the person who happens to be providing the connection at the time that the lost device is tracked.
Once you get close to your lost device, you can choose to have an audible sound play on the lost device or locate it using the AR-based Search Nearby function. Colors increase in intensity when you get closer to your device so you can play a game of "warm, hot, cool, cold" with your lost Galaxy device.
Galaxy smartphones and tablets running Android 8 or later support the new SmartThings app and Find service. Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Z Fold 2 devices support UWB so this wireless technology will be used with BLE to help locate these lost phones.