Google’s Find Hub network is unreliable, but this simple change could fix it

If you’re worried about losing an important possession, you can attach a Bluetooth tracker to it and monitor its location using an item tracking network. For Android users, the most convenient option is Google’s Find Hub network, as it’s built into nearly every Android device. However, the network has a major drawback: it’s not as reliable as its competitors. Fortunately, Google is working on a subtle change to the setup process that could make Find Hub far more dependable.

Find Hub, formerly Find My Device, helps you pinpoint the location of your devices and contacts. It locates items in one of two ways: either the device reports its own location, or another nearby device in the network reports it. While smartphones and tablets can share their own location when they have an Internet connection, they must rely on the crowd-sourced network when they’re offline. The same is true for Bluetooth trackers. In theory, as long as other network participants pass by your lost item, its location will be updated.

Because billions of devices are on the network, location updates should be frequent. Unfortunately, our testing shows that Google’s Find Hub is much less reliable than Apple or even Samsung’s item tracking networks. All three crowdsource location data in very similar ways, but Google’s network has one key difference.

By default, Find Hub won’t report a lost item’s location if only a single device passes by it. The network requires multiple nearby devices to confirm a location before reporting it. While this measure helps protect against misuse by stalkers, it also makes the network less reliable for tracking items outside of high-traffic areas like airports or shopping centers.

To fix this, Google could align Find Hub’s default setting with Apple and Samsung’s networks, but the company is hesitant to force this choice on users. Instead, Google is asking people to change the setting themselves within the Find Hub app. However, most users either don’t bother changing defaults or are unaware the option exists, so the vast majority likely remain on the less effective setting.

The current page for selecting Find Hub’s network option

Instead of hoping users find and enable Find Hub’s more reliable setting, Google is now taking a more proactive approach. According to its “Google System Services Release Notes” page, the company is rolling out an update to Google Play Services (version 25.24) that prompts users to configure Find Hub during device setup.

While this new setup screen isn’t widely available yet, we managed to surface it manually. The page, titled “Find your device and help others too,” explains that “the Find Hub network crowdsources locations from billions of Android devices… to help find lost items like phones and tags.” It presents two network options with toggles:

• Findable everywhere: This is the more reliable option, renamed from the existing “with network in all areas.”
• Findable in busy places only: This is the new name for the default setting, previously called “with network in high-traffic areas only.”

Functionally, nothing has changed besides the names and descriptions. However, the new names and descriptions could convince more people to select the more reliable option. While the old wording merely implied that the default setting was less effective in remote areas, the new phrasing makes that limitation explicit.

A “learn more” button at the bottom of the page opens a dialog to help users make a more informed choice. This dialog clarifies that the “findable in busy places only” option “provides additional privacy protection in remote areas.”

Ultimately, presenting this choice during setup should boost adoption of Find Hub’s more reliable setting, making it a more viable alternative to Samsung’s SmartThings Find and Apple’s Find My networks.

Alongside this new setup prompt, Google is also preparing to auto-enroll more users in Find Hub. Find Hub currently activates when you add a Google Account, but evidence we uncovered in March suggests this will expand to when a user enables location access. While these newly enrolled users will default to the less reliable setting, their participation will still help grow the network, and they can always switch to the more reliable option on their own.