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Actionable Results: How to Find a Phone



The Time When I circumvented Google's "Find my Device" to find my father's lost Pixel 3.

SITUATION:

My father lost his phone. I've been meaning for ages to set it up so he can use Google to call it and not me for 15 minutes.

The situation lasted longer than 15 minutes, bordering on nearly 3 hours.

TASK:

Find it. Look around, check cars and pockets.

ACTION:

First, let's assume that you've attached your Android phone to your Google account. If you simply Google "Find my phone android", you may be taken here.

When it asks for a password to make sure you are who you are, and you don't remember...well, things get a bit trickier.

Next, we resorted to more calling. The phone did immediately go to voicemail at first, and then it rang. No one answered.

"Well, if it can happen to him, it can happen to me," I thought. So I Bing'd to double check where I could do so at, finding this article....which had a link to here, which you can see is a totally new screen.

So, I got onto my father's laptop (Where he was logged into G-Mail), and tried the new link.

 It connected to the phone - it only had 9% left!

I set it to ring for 5 minutes, but the ringing stopped after about 20 seconds.

"Either someone has your phone, or it's stopping to conserve energy," I said.

There's an option to put a message on the lockscreen, so I did so, asking them to call my phone number, because I have my phone.

RESULTS: 

Someone (Ashley!) Called from the phone and said "Yep, it's here at the Winn-Dixie."

"Great! You close in, oh, 30 minutes?"

"Oh no, we close at 10 PM."

"Oh - wow, well, I'll be there! Thank you!"

And by *I'll*, I meant *my father*, because it's his phone.

THOUGHTS:

Why did no one immediately answer it when I called? Maybe a company policy.
Apparently, you can call from a found phone if the option is given to you on the lock screen?
Winn-Dixie doesn't need to stay open that late on Sunday. Let the people go home!

Tweet thread.


EMPLOYERS: Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.
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