Category Archives: Tips and tricks

How to Locate Lost Cell Phone

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Cell Phones are now becoming an integral part in our daily lives. This is due to the rapid cell phone technology that has evolved from a device that is just used for communicating to a smartphone that can be used for many purposes. As the cell phone become smarter, you will not leave home without it as it plays a critical function in many aspects of your life.

A lost cell phone can be a nightmare to some users as many important data is stored in your cell phone and you will do whatever you can to locate the lost cell phone. However, the trends of people losing their cell phone is on the rise as they are bringing their cell phone now to anywhere they go.

As the cell phone get cheaper and cheaper, the cell phone is now owned not just by adults but the kids as well. With the broad increase of demographic customer using the cell phone, it is no mystery that the trend of lost or stolen cell phone are increasing each year. It was reported that in average, 115 cell phones are lost or stolen every minute in the United States alone. However, there are many methods you can try to locate your lost cell phone. Below are some of the methods you can try.

1. Using Apps
With the sophisticated smartphones, there are many apps been developed in the market that can instantly locate your cell phone based on the GPS function. Almost all smartphones have GPS and this function enables the application to locate your cell phone via satellite and pin point the exact coordinate of your cell phone in real time. Among the reliable locater app that you can use are SeekDroid, Where’s My Droid, Plan B and also Prey.

2. Using Embedded services
If you are using Android based cell phone, the cell phone has already an embedded services via Google to locate your cell phone. You can use the Android Device Manager as a way to track where the last footprint of your cell phone is. The Google Android Device Manager is a very powerful tool in not just locating your cell phone but as well as knowing the location of your friends and loved ones.

3. Using Network Provider
If you have not installed any apps or your cell phone is not that ‘smart’, you can always rely on your network provider to do the locating activity. Your network operator has the data and information that you probably can rely on as they can help detect the signal of your cell phone to their nearest cell towers. By using triangulation of the cell towers, the network provider can more or less pin point the latest location of your cell phone.

How to Find Lost Phone

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The usage of mobile phone is expanding rapidly nowadays. Based on emarketer.com, it is estimated that in 2014, the total smartphones users will reach around 4.55 billion users and in 2017 it will reach up to 5.13 billion users. So, with all the smartphones lying around, the rate of lost phone will also increase.

Based on an industry report, the Americans lost their mobile phones to a $30 billion worth of value in 2011 alone. The industry report also mention the higher crime rate of the city, the higher the report of lost phone filed. Another interesting fact is that the places that people usually lost their phone is in public places such as the restaurants and also their workplaces with coffee shops registered the most highest of people losing their phone.

The laidback and relax environment of the coffee shops probably makes people forgot their smartphones perhaps. With the advance of smartphones, the loss of your phone does not just equate with loss of money value but also in terms of information value. In your smartphone now, you will have all your personal details such as your contacts, email list, social media account and also other private confidential such as your credit card info and also bank account. These are sensitive information and can be used wrongfully if it gets to the wrong hands.

So, with all the risk of losing a phone is getting higher, the more the ability to find and track your lost phone becomes a necessity. As the developer of smartphones realizes this, they have already embedded certain applications in their operating software to track your phone once it got lost. For iOS for example, they already have the Find My iPhone that can help track your phone once it is stolen or lost by using the GPS coordination of your smartphone.

It can track real time and in the same time you can remotely erase data in the iPhone for security reasons. Android also have what they called the Android Device Manager which functions as a tracking program for your mobile devices that runs on an Android. However, there is also third party apps that functions as an Android Phone Tracker that can find your phone as well as remotely wipe your data.

However, if you are not using a smartphone, you will not have the access to this sophisticated tracking app. Therefore, tracking your phone will be quite tough. However, your network operator can do the tracking for you by using the triangulation method. Every time your lost phone is connected to the network, the network can detect the nearest cell tower nearby and therefore can pinpoint the location of your phone. The network operator can do this by tracking your SIM card as well as using the IMEI number of your phone.

With the increase features of smartphones nowadays, smartphones has now become integrated to our lifestyle. Therefore it is an important devices that we must learn to protect and keep it close to our belongings. The know-how in retrieving your lost phone will also be an important knowledge as well as more applications will be developed in the future to track and find your lost phone.


Track Phone using Google Location History

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A little known secret in the method of tracking phone and people is that we can use Google itself to do this. The feature is known as the Google Location History. Even though this feature has been a long time fearture in Google services not many people knew about it. It is enabled normally through the Android operating system based devices such as your phone or tablet.

Normally when you setting up your new Android based phone or tablet, it will ask whether Google can transmit your location data. This data is help to determine the location of your device through locating your cell IDs and also Wi-Fi routers where your devices are connected. By knowing this info, Google can track your movement based on the signal it receives.

Google Location History

Apple also uses the same method in their ‘Find iPhone’ app installed in all of its mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad. So how do you able to track your phone using the Google location history? First thing you need to understand is the feature of the Google Location History itself. It originated from the Google Latitude. After the services was discontinued, some of the features of Google Latitude was being carried on by Google Location History. Google also introduced the Android Device Manager recently that also uses the information in the Google Location History.

The reason that your smartphones are reporting your location to Google or also known as Location Reporting. This vital information is transmitted from any mobile devices that you have opt for Location Reporting to be turned on. From the transmitted data, Google is able to store the location data as well as the location history of your mobile devices. Google uses the data to improvise its Google Now services and learns your daily routine in terms of commuting and also the daily routes that you normally take. This information gathered from a collective resources will help them to determine the best routes as well as the traffic condition of certain parts of the world.

Knowing that Google is tracking your mobile devices location is a bit of scary and creepy. But the truth is, many of the application in your smartphones are already doing the same thing. The transmit location data of where you are and one of the popularly used is Waze. So, before you are shouting to Google of privacy, take a closer look at other applications in your smartphone device that you are already giving consent to transmit your location.

However, the good news is that the Location Reporting can be turned off. All you need to do is to find the label ‘Location’ in your Android setting device. Once there, try to find ‘Google Location Reporting’. There you will be able to delete your location history as well as to switch off the location tracking. This way it will block Google to track your Android based mobile device. Other devices probably have different settings, but normally it can be turned off in the same manner.