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Comment by sorenjan | Hacker News Reader

I wish there was a good option for non Apple users. From what I've heard Google made their version pretty bad, as expected. They rate limit how often you can search for your own tags, they won't show the location until a tag has been seen by multiple phones, there's poor coverage. One test I saw showed that Samsung's network was better, which makes no sense since Samsung phones should be a subset of all Android phones in Google's network, but that's Google products for you. Sounds good in theory but poorly executed, even years after Apple showed how to do it.

https://security.googleblog.com/2024/04/find-my-device-netwo...

https://9to5google.com/2024/08/01/find-my-device-stress-test...

https://9to5google.com/2024/08/03/google-android-find-my-dev...

https://www.androidcentral.com/accessories/testing-new-googl...

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It's actually hilarious that whoever was in charge of Google's finder network decided to cripple the product's one and only function by prioritizing privacy.

In this tradeoff, Google gained a handful of articles mentioning the "innovative" privacy improvements (before the writers had a chance to test how terribly the network actually performs). For that, they sacrificed the chance to compete with Apple in this category, which outside of device revenue also weakens Android/Pixel ecosystem and market share. You really can't make up this level of incompetence.

> It's actually hilarious that whoever was in charge of Google's finder network decided to cripple the product's one and only function by prioritizing privacy.

That sounds like that "whoever" was the corporate legal team. Every time I tracked down these kind of idiocities in large corpos, it's usually legal or security team that overrode common sense and sabotaged their own product.

Google's interest in user privacy extends as far as keeping competitors or customers of google from getting data about an Android user other than through Google.

Well sure, you could accuse Apple and Huawei of the exact same thing and still be right. Hardware OEMs are extremely desperate to force their customers through first-party services to extend the value of their sale. News at 11.

Because America lacks any form of conscious consumer protection, this is apparently fine to our regulators. Our market is entirely comfortable with OEMs fighting over who gets the right to exploit a customer with their defacto monopoly.

> It's actually hilarious that whoever was in charge of Google's finder network decided to cripple the product's one and only function by prioritizing privacy.

That is a hilariously apt and depressing point. Wow.

Google is a timid shell of its former self, it won't dip a foot in a pool without making sure the water is warm.

It's hard to believe how Google could mess up their network so badly. Apple network shall be totally dwarfed.

As a nomad-traveler, the Apple network is not particularly relevant to me, I don't travel to the wealthiest cities with a lot of Apple phones, but to the "rest of the world" where Android market share is close to 90% dominance. But even there, it still seems that Apple is doing better than Google (...)

> From what I've heard Google made their version pretty bad

I have one on my keys. The one time I tried to use it, despite refreshing multiple times, it gave me a bubble with a quarter mile radius. It turned out to be in my bag right next to me.

So, you're saying it was correct? ;)

Red arrow pointing at Earth on solar system

Nailed it.

It was technically correct.

Lower your expectations until they're already met. Go team, we did it!

Samsung's solution is not a subset, but a superior, separate concept.

It works incredibly well, even at the most remote countries' airports, villages, etc I can find my 2 tags. A peace of mind.

This guy concludes that Samsung SmartTag is the best, even if you are an iPhone user:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9wefUV_bR0Y

Seems like they should just piggyback on FindMy also

I dunno, a less than perfectly all-seeing omnipresent tracking network actually is a little comforting

It's not very useful for tracking your things though, which arguably is why you would use it. I wouldn't trust Google's network to find a stolen bike or lost luggage for instance, but air tags are used for that all the time[0]. Finding my lost keys at home is a perfectly valid use case for tags, but you don't need a network for that, just some Bluetooth and maybe UWB.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2024/12/17/lost-lu...

https://help.vanmoof.com/hc/en-us/articles/16053155393181-Ho...

Google is still seeing everything, of course, just not the plebs.

There is a setting, where you can disable that it needs to be seen by multiple phones.

No, that's the whole point of the fiasco. That setting is not for the tracker but for the tracking devices. For Google Find My trackers to behave similarly to AirTags, every single android user would have to go to their Find My settings and explicitly change, how sensitive their phone is.

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