A mobile that has ceased to have daily use should not become useless: it continues to offer many uses. Such as become a handy gps tracker. Do you want to be sure that you can find your car in the event of theft? And without apps, Android offers it as standard.
Location is one of the most useful tools on a smartphone. It allows you to locate yourself on the map in order to go anywhere, it also improves the practice of outdoor sports for example. Unfortunately, the fact that a mobile phone has tracking capabilities has its downside: privacy risks if the data reaches certain apps. This, yes, there are ways to use GPS tracking in your favor.
Locate your car, your wallet, your motorcycle… with an old mobile
A smartphone is not as handy when it comes to tracking as an Apple AirTag or a Samsung SmartTag, but it gives the same result: Accurately find lost items. Of course, they must be large and they must have holes to hide the phone without it being seen; a detail that limits the possibilities.
If your old Android is still working fine, the battery lasts several days without continuous use and the mobile connectivity works you can turn it into a GPS tracker. Ideally, it should be as small as possible since, surely, you want to hide it so that it goes unnoticed, but it will serve you even if it does not respect this postulate. The main thing is that it works like a smartphone.
If your old mobile continues to function as a smartphone, you will have no problem transforming it into a practical GPS locator
Mobile is essential, but not the only thing. Let’s see what other requirements you need to take into account to make everything work.
A SIM with an active data rate
Locators send their exact location in order to retrieve both the device itself and what it was protecting. For him, must have mobile connectivity: The SIM card is essential.
Our recommendation is that you use a prepaid data rate to avoid the inconvenience of being charged for almost zero usage. Choose an economical rate, make sure you have at least one gigabyte of data (even less, having the mobile connected does not consume much) and make sure that the tariff does not expire while you use the mobile as a locator.
an external battery
It is not essential if your mobile lasts several days, but it is recommended: it gives you peace of mind. With an external battery of, for example, 10,000 mAh, you will have for more than a week of localization without having to recharge the phone
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with external battery the mobile will take up more space, you must take this into account. It is therefore difficult to hide the locator so that “potential thieves” do not find it.
A Google account registered on the mobile
Google Remote Location Service is active
To locate the phone, we will use the native Android function, to find the devices. Therefore, you need an active Google account with which to register the mobile. Make sure everything is working properly as follows:
- Enter the settings of your old Android mobile and go to the Google section.
- Go to “Find my device.
- Make sure “Use Find My Device” is enabled.
Once you have all of the above, you can use your phone as a GPS locator. In principle, it is already configured so that in case you lose where you keep the old mobile, you can know where you are at all times with an accuracy of a few meters.
How to use Find My Device
Precise GPS location with Find My Device
Google allows find an Android mobile with great precision in the event of loss or theft, an operation that you can take advantage of to turn the phone into a GPS locator. Once you’ve met the above requirements, it’s time to figure out how to find whatever you can lose.
- Access this link from a browser (web or mobile).
- Sign in with the Google account you used to register the old phone.
- Choose the phone you used as a pager.
- Google will contact the mobile remotely, request the precise location and the phone, through the mobile connectivity of the SIM card, will send this location to Google. The result is a map with the exact point where the device is located; with whatever you have stored it in.
- You can also locate your phone using the Find My Device app on another phone.
As long as the mobile has a battery and mobile data, you will be able to know where it is. Of course, it is likely that the location is not very precise, everything will depend on the GPS coverage available to the mobile.
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