Wherein I endorse a product and/or service.

[theweaselking]

Have you ever reached for your phone, realised it wasn't there, and swore bitterly before checking your desk, your car, your floor, the outside, etc?

Well, I have. One too many times, as of this morning. So I decided to look at my options.

Voila,
Android Lost

Push to phone remotely via Google Play, activate with a text message from a friend, and poof, suddenly I can do a great many things as long as I confirm to http://www.androidlost.com/ that I am the phone owner by using Google's authentication.

I started with "tell me the phone's current status and location", which gave me (among other things) the battery details (plugged in, charging), the current IP (on my home network - I use a distinctive subnet), and then it turned on the GPS and popped up Google Maps with a little arrow on the precise location of the phone: My house.

So I left it at home! It is a major load off my mind to know that. Seriously.

From there, I decided to have a little fun, and started snapping pictures (all black - the phone is in it's case - but it works!), recording audio (a snoring dog), then recording audio while setting the phone to maximum volume and sounding an alarm (the dog snoring stopped, suddenly). I viewed the last 10 text messages sent/received, then sent one to myself that says "Help, I am a lost phone. Please return me to John and pet my dog since you are in my house."

I *could* erase my phone, or have it report that it is stolen on boot, or lock it, or set call forwarding (!!!! - may do that anyway!) or any number of other things, but it makes me really happy just to be able to say "yes, it is definitely in my house, not on the ground somewhere or gone walkabout."

Seriously. Very handy app.

Comments

[avieyal.livejournal.com]

Mostly like Where's My Droid except I don't think WMD can remotely take pictures or record audio.

Perhaps I'll switch. This one sounds much more fun! Thanks for the rec!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

More particularly, WMD can't be remotely activated for the first time *after* you lose the phone. Or at least I didn't see the option.

[moiread]

WMD can be activated remotely by a text message with a predetermined passphrase in it. I've never had much luck with the GPS, so I only really use it for the "text my phone with the German word for 'lost' to make it go apeshit" feature. For the rest, I use SeekDroid, because I can log into their website from wherever I am to track my phone's location and check all the same data as you mentioned, track the most recent use, wipe it, lock it, whatever. I don't think it can take photos, though.

But it sounds like AndroidLost is both of those combined?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

WMD can be activated remotely by a text message with a predetermined passphrase in it

True, but that requires me to set that predetermined passphrase. I can't, WITHOUT MY PHONE, go to Google Play, click "install WMD", wait for it to show in the installed apps list, and activate it - can I?

(because I could do that with Android Lost. And I didn't see how to make WMD work without activating it on the phone *before* I needed it. When I first got my phone, I installed and set up WMD, but then I replaced my phone and since I'd never needed WMD, I didn't think to reinstall it.)

I only really use it for the "text my phone with the German word for 'lost' to make it go apeshit" feature.

You realise that I both speak German and know your phone number, right?

I'm just saying.....

[moiread]

> I can't, WITHOUT MY PHONE, go to Google Play, click "install WMD", wait for it to show in the installed apps list, and activate it - can I?

Ah, semantics. No, you can't install WMD after the fact. But I don't think of "install" as "activate", so when you said "activate", I assumed you meant "make this installed app do helpful things", not "install the app". Hence my response. Being able to install Android Lost remotely after the fact is super cool, though!

> You realise that I both speak German and know your phone number, right?

Yes. Even if you didn't, finding out the word is very easy with two seconds on Google. And you would hardly be the first person to pull that prank. But it's no big secret. I've put it up as my away message on Trillian so that international people could wake me or let me know, during my overnight streamholds at the radio station, when the servers die and I need to come restart the music. (It's the easiest way to let them do that without costing them anything.) So EVERYONE ON MY IMs knows. When people abuse it, which they generally don't, I change the password for an hour. :P

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

So EVERYONE ON MY IMs knows.

I didn't.

finding out the word is very easy with two seconds on Google.

True, but finding your cell number was harder than that, until you pointed out that you had it on twitter and livejournal.

[moiread]

Not my fault if you don't pay attention! Last week I forgot to change it after I was done the streamhold and it was up for three days instead of just overnight.

It's not actually on Twitter, only LJ. I brainfarted and wrote "Twitter" instead of "Trillian" but then fixed it. I don't really post the phone number around in public, either. I'm pretty free about giving out my cell number but not quite THAT free. Instead I tell people to e-mail a Gmail account that's set up to forward to my phone, or to use the link in my LJ profile, and so on. Technology is wonderful!

And I was about to ask how finding my cell number could POSSIBLY have been hard for you, but then I remembered that you made this post because you left your phone at home. Genius moment, self!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I was about to ask how finding my cell number could POSSIBLY have been hard for you, but then I remembered that you made this post because you left your phone at home. Genius moment, self

Not even that, so much as "it's safe to say what the magic word is, as long as nobody knows where the magic word *goes*". Joe Random Internet Troll can't walk by this post and start making your phone go bleep since your phone number is not easily googleable, even if he knows the magic word.

I, however, am not Joe Random Internet Troll. I *know* the address where the magic word goes, and now I know the magic word mooohooohhahahahahahaha. Is what I was saying. Which you have then deflated by pointing out that many people knew both word and address before.

(Also; Yeah, no, losing my phone doesn't lose my phonebook. I learned: that shit goes in multiple places and syncs regularly.)

[moiread]

Hell, anyone who visits my LJ profile can set it off -- I've got my phone connected to LJ so that people can send texts to my phone through the link there. OH NOES. If it ever becomes a problem, I'll just pick something else. :P

thanks

[grrltechie.livejournal.com]

This looks like an awesome app and I'm really paranoid about losing my new Galaxy Nexus. So Ima try it out :)
Also, you totally need to text German words at moiread cause that sounds deliciously evil. And I don't know either of you so I should be safe from paybacks :p

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I have location services off on my phone because i have no desire to let Google know where i am at any given time.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Ah! But with this, you can turn the location services on when you *want* your phone to know where it is, remotely.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Wacky. I'm sure that no one will be able to exploit this feature in the future!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

If you only install the app that does it when you want the feature, then only someone who compromises your Google Account in the first place (and thus can push apps to your phone) can do so.

And if they've got your google account, they have your phone *anyway*.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

That was my concern too, since I leave GPS off so it doesn't sap the battery, so it's good to know you can remotely activate it.

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

And it's the free! So even more useful.

[ixeian.livejournal.com]

Handy. Very handy. Much appreciated.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

I don't understand how people lose their phones so often.

I'm a forgetful idiot, but more importantly I know I'm a forgetful idiot. So there are really only a few places I leave my phone: in my hand, in my pocket, charging at my computer, or next to my bed.

I also have the advantage of coming from a culture where it's drilled into your head that your rifle is only secure if it's attached to your body, in your hands, or within reach. Any other configuration is emphatically not secure, and will earn you either pushups or a reprimand that costs you half that month's pay.

But that service is still pretty neat.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Mine wasn't "lost" so much as "my morning pattern had been disrupted, and after picking it up to put it on my pocket, I put it down again to deal with something else. Since I had picked it up, it was mentally filed as present. Since I had put it down, it wasn't actually on me."

And then, when I later needed it, it wasn't where I *knew* it was, which was bad.