Google will resolve Android Find My Device network issues ‘in the coming weeks’

In a statement provided to Mishaal Rahmana senior contributor to sites such as Android Authority It is Android Policethat they shared on X, Google acknowledged concerns about its Find My Device network. “We are actively working to implement improvements to the way Find My Device works that will improve the speed and ability to locate lost items in the coming weeks. Devices continue to join the new Find My Device network and we expect the network to grow, which will also help improve the location of lost devices.”

The performance of crowdsourced tracking networks like Android’s Find My Device depends on the number of users actively using the service. Initially available only in the US and Canada, the updated rollout of the Find My Device network has been slow and only recently expanded to the UK last month.

As Google states, network performance will improve as it continues to grow, but in its statement to Rahman, it also suggested that users could improve it ahead of the planned improvements by changing the Find My Device network setting to “With network in all areas .”

The Find My Device network setting defaults to “Only networked in high-traffic areas,” which will wait until multiple Android devices detect a lost item before sharing its location, as calculated from several different location reports. As the name implies, this approach works best in busy locations like malls or airports where multiple devices detect a lost item, with an extra layer of privacy for Android devices sharing location information.

Changing this setting to “Networked in all areas” can potentially help you locate lost items faster in “lower traffic areas” because instead of aggregating your location from multiple Android devices that have detected them, the location of just a single device is used. The reason “Networked in all areas” is not the default setting is because it requires users to “opt in to share location information over the network.” according to Googlewhich some may be hesitant to do for privacy reasons.