Saturday, January 19, 2013

Android Finding Miracle Worker


My teenage daughter lost her ridiculously expensive new mobile phone in the snow. Yep. That just happened. The panic, the daughter in near tears, the resigned digging through insurance paper work in case we can't find it, what fun ways to spend a Saturday. Of course, in these times of desperate need, there's only one place I could think that might offer some help or guidance; the internet. 
I found all kinds of lovely tools, apps and gizmos to install on our Android phones before they get lost, but only one that could help if your phone was already missing. Enter plan b.

Plan b let me remotely install to her mobile phone through the Google account the phone was registered to. Once it was installed, it began sending me locating emails, giving us the coordinates of the phone with an accuracy within 10 ft/3m.  Once we relied on the exact coordinates, we found the phone within moments. It was amazing. And now I'm my daughters favorite person on the planet. Makes digging through the snow totally worth it. 

4 comments:

  1. So sorry to hear that! It must be so heartbreaking and frustrating to lose a phone. Thankfully, technology came to save the day. That's pretty cool how you can install plan b after the fact. I've never lost my phone, but I have this "find my phone" app that I use on my iPhone. It's similar to plan b and I think I can wipe my phone clean, if I can't find it at all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. See, if I was super cool like you, I would have insisted she install something like that on her phone when she was given it as her birthday present. Then we would've been prepared. But, I'm not clever that way. I'm so thankful for Plan b. When my husband and daughter were ready to give up, I pulled a Scarlet O'Hara moment out of it. My point of fixation wasn't about going hungry again. It was that bloomin' mobile phone. I would not give up, as long as there was daylight. Big props to the plan b engineers!

    ReplyDelete
  3. dude, this happened to me so many times when I first got my ipod. I didn't lose it in the snow, but I lost it around the house, in the car, in my closet, in my fridge. And I am so glad that there are ways to find them now like this app! Glad you found it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That sounds a really neat little app!

    ReplyDelete