Android Is Making It Easier to Contact Lost Phone Owners

Losing your phone is obviously a very bad thing to happen, but there are ways for you to track it down. However, what if you’re not the one who ends up finding it? Google is working on making it easier for people to contact you if they find your phone.

The service formerly known as “Find My Device” has been receiving a lot of attention lately. Earlier this year, it was rebranded to “Find Hub,” and it will soon get a Material 3 Expressive redesign to go along with it. Much of the focus with Find Hub is on helping people find things they’ve lost. Thanks to an APK teardown, we know that Google is working on improving a different scenario: someone else finding your phone.

A new screen is being tested for when you mark your phone as lost in Find Hub. Currently, when you mark your phone as lost, the device screen says “Locked by Find Hub” and has a button to “Call Owner.” The new screen makes it more obvious that the phone has been lost, and the buttons are clearer.

The new screen, which is tied to a Google Play Services update, says “This phone has been lost” in large text at the top of the screen. There’s a spot for custom text underneath that. Lastly, two or three buttons take up the bottom of the screen. An “Unlock” button to enter a PIN, an “Emergency” button for the dialer, and if you’ve entered an emergency contact phone number, there’s a third button to “Call Owner.”

Of course, the person who finds your phone needs to actually want to return it for any of this to be useful, but it does make everything much clearer if that’s the case. You always have the option to remotely wipe the device if you feel it won’t be returned. Regardless, I would expect to see this new screen soon, as Google is in the process of rolling out Material 3 Expressive redesigns to many of its apps.

Source: Android Authority