Apple and Google have recently enabled what are likely the world’s largest, most accurate, and widest-reaching location networks since the dawn of GPS itself. The implications are massive and are poised to shake up the industry. These networks are not unlike the internet or GPS; they’re built upon them. They are, however, fundamentally different, and their existence enables technologies and use cases that would previously have been impossible or cost-prohibitive. They’re also spurring discussion on safety and privacy and just how far is too far. Today, I am talking about Apple’s “Find My” and Google’s “Find My Device” networks.
The Problem Statement
Since our humble beginnings, humans have collectively spent lifetimes looking for our things – socks, cars, paperwork… pets, parents, children (oops). Things that we’ve misplaced, things that we’ve lost, things that we’ve dropped, things that were stolen from us. Everyone can relate, and many of us for one or more of the same few things – your keys that you absentmindedly left in your mailbox, your wallet left on the table in a restaurant, or your phone, sitting lonely on the park bench in the rain. Solutions exist to these low–tech and high–tech problems, but they all come with drawbacks.
On the low-tech side, we can retrace our steps, check our usual hiding spots, or maybe phone a friend for help. These methods are tried and true and can often be helpful. However, they have their limits and don’t always help us find our things.
On the high-tech side, GPS trackers exist but aren’t exactly cheap; they don’t work well indoors, they typically require a cellular plan, and they require somewhat frequent battery changes if you want your missing thing to call home more than once a day. Tile Trackers are great and are even built on similar technology – one could rightfully consider Tile pioneers of the space Apple and Google are now filling. However, Tile uses a user-installed mobile app, and there are limits to the coverage of this network style, which will become apparent when you understand how Apple and Google’s networks work.
What we really need are inexpensive, small devices with long battery life that can be accurately located and work just about anywhere.
Apple and Google to the Rescue
What are these “Find” networks, and how do they work? The idea is pretty simple: Apple and Google turned our phones into simple, secure, privacy-focused Bluetooth tracking devices. Eventually, with only minor software updates, watches, televisions, laptops, cars, and all the other smart devices we use can be updated to do the same. Then, they worked with manufacturing partners to produce inexpensive Bluetooth beacons that implement their tracking standards. Customers buy the beacons and attach them to the things they don’t want to lose. Like magic, they can now be tracked anywhere people go with their smart devices.
If I leave my keys on the bumper of my wife’s car and they fall off while she’s driving around town, someone else’s phone (e.g. another driver, a bicyclist, someone in a business nearby) will see them and automatically report back to the network exactly where they are. When I realize they’re gone, I check my phone, see where they are, drive over, and grab them. Through a clever implementation and use of cryptography, the devices tracking my keys (and, by extension, the users) don’t even know that they’re helping me locate my keys.
To respect the privacy of users whose phones and devices contribute to the network, participation is technically opt-in in both Apple and Google’s implementation of their respective Find networks. I italicize technically because in both systems, the user is asked for permission to participate in the network, but opting out means losing the ability to do various things most people want to do, like finding your things if you lose them. In Apple’s case, it’s a simple on or off option: if it’s on, you contribute to the network and gain the ability to find your things when they’re lost; if it’s off, your device does not contribute, and you can not benefit from the network to find your lost devices. Google has more granularity in the options they let users choose with respect to how their device participates in the network. Usually, this would be a welcome design choice – options are good. However, in this case, I think Google should take the Apple approach because, for one, the system is designed well enough to ensure privacy when it’s on, and two, the system doesn’t work optimally unless all (or most) devices contribute to it. Google’s network is brand new, so I’ll give them a pass on this for now. I fully expect that they’ll tighten up the opt-in options in the coming months and settle on Apple’s two options – on or off.
Billions of Devices, One Unified Network
I previously noted that Apple and Google are using all of their user devices to power these networks, and I want to reiterate that because it’s important and also because it’s why I chose to write this piece. Apple and Google have turned every device running their software into devices capable of tracking Bluetooth tags. That’s over 5 billion (yes, that’s a ‘b’) devices worldwide – 1.4 billion Apple users, 3.9 billion Android users– given the ability to turn into simple Bluetooth gateways. To give some sense of coverage, our standard Thinaer Bluetooth beacons will transmit location and sensor data about 200 feet with their default settings. Apple and Google’s respective “Find” network-compatible beacons should work similarly for location and potentially sensor data in the future. When Thinaer works with a customer to set up their site, we set up the infrastructure with that number in mind to ensure coverage sufficient to pick up those beacons. Apple and Google’s networks can’t guarantee the coverage, but does that matter?
Because the network comprises our smart devices, it can exist wherever we take those devices. When was the last time you lost something that wasn’t within a few hundred feet of where people go with their phones?