How long can you follow a pixel after a thief stopped it? I tested to discover

Almost no week goes by without me giving my husband a Bluetooth tracker and I asked him to take him to work so that I can test a distant location and a search. I did it with Airtags, the Samsung Galaxy Smarttag2, the tile trackers and the dozens of Google find my trackers compatible with the device like the Chipolo Pop and the Moto Tag. But when my Android authority The colleague Luka asked if we had already tested Google’s phone search and how long it lasted, I drew a white.

To test the offline search function of Google, I had to put my Pixel 9 Pro against certain checks. I used the iPhone 13 Pro Max as an Apple Find My Controller and the Tag motorcycle as a comparison point to search for my network of Google devices. After all, if the whole network did not work as planned, I could not blame the offline search so as not to deliver a precise location.

At 3 am, just before bed, I turned off the two phones with a lot of battery (although this should work even if the main battery is exhausted) and removed the battery from the motorcycle label. The next morning, my husband slipped them into his backpack and went to work. He put the motorcycle tag battery around 11 a.m., kept the two phones extinct and I started to check where we were.

The iPhone had sang its location all morning and was seen for the last time two minutes ago next to my husband’s work. The Moto Tag took a few minutes to make up for it, but quickly showed a similar location. The Pixel 9 Pro? Given for the last time at 2:56 a.m. at home when I turned it out for the last time. He had not updated his location once during the nine hours since. Keep in mind that my husband is carrying a pixel 7 pro with the research network my active network and participates in all areas; He has no iPhone.

I continued to check throughout the afternoon and the situation remained the same. Obviously, Google finds my network of peripherals, but something prevented the Pixel 9 pro appearing.

At 6:40 p.m., when my husband was on the way back, the propelled iPhone and the tag motorcycle shared its updated location, while the Pixel 9 Pro is stubbornly glued to “last 2 h 56”. Even when my husband was at home and the Pixel 9 Pro was literally back next to me, he refused to update his location. It took until 8:15 p.m. for a miracle to occur and the Find My Device application shows me that the phone was seen at home.

He updated his location again during the evening, then is removed from the card. In comparison, the iPhone continued to update its location every two minutes until ~ 2 am, that is to say that it completed the 24 hours promised offline observation that Apple mentions in its description of the functionality.

I repeated this test the next day with similar results and it was there that it came to my mind that my Pixel 9 Pro performs the Android 16 Beta. I could not find a bug deposited around this problem, so I did not know if it was a known problem, a unique problem with my unit or a general discovery in the event of an offline problem, regardless of beta software or not. But I did not want to reject Google’s efforts on the basis of a phone that performs the beta firmware, so I did my tests with a Pixel 9 Pro Fold on Android 15 Stable.

More tests: pixel 9 pro be folded on Android 15 stable

To start, I needed a quick test to make sure that the Pixel 9 Pro Fold would behave as expected when it was turned off. I propelled it at 6:22 pm one evening before heading for Paris and for it packed in my own backpack. It never left my side, so I did not count on any other phone or network to find it – just my own main phone, the Pixel 9 Pro XL.

This quick test was a success. The fold was detected near me throughout the evening, until 9 p.m., when I got home. The functionality therefore works, in theory – at least when the phone does not leave my side. Again, I started to blame Android 16 beta for my early failure on the Pixel 9 Pro and I was looking forward to testing things again.

For my third test, I turned off the Pixel 9 Pro Fold at 11 p.m. and sent it with my husband the next day, March 28 (the date is important). I continued to check that I find my device to see if he had detected the phone, but he continued to insist that he was seen for the last time at home throughout the day. I swear, at this stage, I thought I was to be crazy. How could the phone be “the last seen”, that is to say, actively updating its location at home, in the eastern suburbs, but also being physically with my husband halfway from Paris? I don’t know. I really asked him to recheck twice that he had the fold with him, and not another phone.

At this point, I had just given up trying to see if finding my device works with potential phones. I turned off the application, I did not check anything again and I just continued my life. I had other tests and more important things to do than to continue to give a second chance to a functionality that does not work. A few days later, while I spotted Pixel 9 Pixel 9 Pixel 9 at my office, I said to myself: “Hey, see if something has changed with this location.” And that’s where … you might think I was lying if I didn’t have a screenshot for that.

Ok, so let me explain. On March 28, when the phone was actually with my husband in the middle of Paris, he told me that he was “seen” at home throughout the day. But two days later, finding my device tells me that the phone was seen two days earlier at 12:12 p.m. in Paris, where it was physically. What happened there, why overlap, why the situation of the Schrödinger cat, and why the location of Buggy during verification, and the right location later? I don’t know.

If I had really lost my phone and I didn’t give it to my husband’s sure hands, I could never have found her. Or when I did, it would have been too late.

Also note that the last time the phone’s location was updated, it was nearly 1 p.m. after its issue – far from the 24 hours of active location.

You can say that at that time, I was more than frustrated by this little experience, but I decided to give it a more blow, just for the pleasure (read: torture) of all this. I turned off my pixel 9 Pro Fold at 8:14 p.m. on April 10 and I won with me when buying new garden equipment. I knew it, once again, I gave it an unfair advantage while keeping next to me, but I wanted to see if it would even bother me with that.

The first minutes were fishing. The phone was detected near me – I could even see the last battery level and the operator to which it was connected. But half an hour later, the location has since updated even if it was literally in my backpack. Nor was I in a distant place, if you wonder about the aspect of the confidentiality of Find My Device; I went to a large store, I took a crowded bus and waited in the middle of a very popular place for another bus. During the next four hours, until midnight, the last location seen was at 8:28 p.m., and finding my device would not tell me that the phone was always close to me, even if I already got home in my backpack.

After all this, I contacted my colleague Mishaal Rahman who covers the offline functionality of Android 15 because he appeared for the first time as a teaser and on the right to his announcement, then deployed on other phones. I asked him if he had really tested it and the answer was that he had made several times, it worked for him, and he saw comments from other people who said it works too.

Everyone tells me that the research network on my device has improved a lot too, and even if I noticed this, I always encounter more reliability problems than for a network which is supposed to help me find my lost elements in an obligation.

It may be a weaker network around Paris, I tell myself. It may be my phones, even if I have already tried this on two pixels. It may be Android 16 beta on the Pixel 9 Pro where I tested it for the first time. This may be the aspect of confidentiality preventing the network from updating the location of a device when there are not many people nearby. Maybe, maybe, maybe …

But the reality is that, during my last test on April 10, my Pixel 9 Pro Fold on Android 15 Stable has updated its location fifteen minutes after being turned off, even if it was still in my backpack. (I will not even mention the entire March 28 at the head of the head of the house, followed by a correct location two days later.) No problem of beta, network or account could explain the unreliable behavior of April 10. It is supposed to be just Bluetooth, from the fold powered by mine, primary, pixel 9 pro XL. If this simple link does not work, can I trust the world with a thief?