Samsung is rolling out a crowdsourced location network for its Find My Mobile service

Tile was the first to launch a crowdsourced location network using Bluetooth LE, which allowed members of the service to help find each other’s lost items.

Apple added the same technology to their Find My Phone service, which allowed other Apple users to help you find your lost phone (and eventually other items) by reporting the location of other people’s Apple products around them.

Now Samsung is rolling out the same technology to the hundreds of millions of Samsung smartphone users.

Samsung owners are bring prompted to sign on for ‘Offline finding’, which not only helps them find their lost phone but also enrols them into becoming part of the crowdsourced finding network.

Samsung explains:

This will allow your phone to be found by other people’s Galaxy devices even when it’s not connected to a network. It will also allow your phone to be used to scan for lost Galaxy devices that may be nearby.

You can also find watches and earbuds if this was the last device they connected to.

From the explanation, it appears crowdsourced finding will work for phones, but unfortunately not watches and earbuds yet, which is a pity, as these are even easier to lose.

The feature does not appear to need an OS update, but it is not clear yet how widely the service will be rolling out at present.

via Max Weinbach