Find your TRACKERS with ALEXA or GOOGLE HOME

Technology is advancing super fast and I'm loving it.  At the same time, it can be scary. Will we go down the road to our Judgement Day like in the Terminator movies?  When technology becomes self-aware and out of control. Or will we go down the road where technology is like the Jetson's, where you can say anything out loud and technology will do whatever we say.  Well that day is coming believe it not. With the help of Alexa, Google Home, and Siri, it will be here before you know it.

In just the few years that these Voice Controlled Devices has been out, it has come from this small little music player to a major technology device that works with a lot of different apps and services.

Well, Bluetooth trackers are joining onto the band wagon of this technology and partnering up with these voice controlled devices.

The first one that I saw that worked with Alexa is the TrackR. With some simple setup steps you could asked Alexa where your phone was and it would make your phone ring. But that's where TrackR stopped. You could NOT ask Alexa to find your TrackR, it could only find your phone.



I waited and waited and finally a Bluetooth tracker company came out with the ability to ring your tracker from Alexa. PebbleBee Finder was the first one that I've seen that could do this. But it could only find one Finder tracker per account. Soon they will be adding the ability to find multiple Finders by having custom names attached to each Finder. One could be called your keys, one your purse, and one your backpack. But they haven't made that feature work like that yet.

Then just yesterday. Tile released their Tile Pro Series trackers. The Tile Sport and Tile Style and guess what. No only can you find your tracker with Alexa, but you can also find it with Google Home. On top of that, you can have multiple trackers setup with different names and each one could be found with Alexa or Google Home.  In my testing though, you didn't need one of the Pro Series Tile's to make this feature work. It can work with your Tile Slim or your Tile Mate, which is AWESOME !!

Check out the review video I did of the New Tile Pro Series and the new ability for Tile to be found with Alexa here...

For more information about these features check out the Tile Website - here.

What is a "BLUETOOTH" Tracker

What is a "BLUETOOTH" Tracker?

I rarely get this question, believe it or not, but I always get people assuming that Bluetooth trackers have GPS and some magical way of communicating outside of Bluetooth. They don't! Simply, if your phone or someone else's phone with the same tracking app is not within the range of the Bluetooth tracker, there is no communication or connection. PERIOD.  

Now that is out of the way.  What is a Bluetooth tracker?  In a nutshell, they're small little devices that you put onto or into personal belongs that you tend to lose a lot. When things go missing, you can quickly run the app on your phone and ring your Bluetooth tracker. Making it a lot easier to find your miss place item. Some of my favorite things that I like to put a Bluetooth tracker on are my keys, my wallet, remotes, and my AirPods

Most Bluetooth devices also work in the opposite direction too. Meaning that you can press a button on your Bluetooth tracker and it will ring your phone if you happen to misplace it. Some Bluetooth trackers require you have the app running though so you want to make sure you pick a brand that will work without the app running. Watch my reviews on each brand. 

There are also several trackers on the market that have figure out a way to keep the ability to find your phone working, even if the app is not running in the background. (App still installed though) Also, it can always keep tracking your Bluetooth tracker, so if you leave it behind or lose it, it can even tell you it's the last location it was connected. Without this ability, it will only show that last place that it was connected while the app was running. WHO REMEMBERS TO TURN ON THEIR APP BEFORE THEY LOSE SOMETHING. It just doesn't happen, the app has to continue to work even if the user accidentally or purposely shuts down the app. I did a video showing how this feature works on the first Bluetooth tracker that I tested that was able to do this. The Chipolo. Check it out above. Most other brands have followed suit but watch my review video on each brand.

There are also a lot of Bluetooth trackers that like to try to stand out from the crowd and add additional features to their devices. A lot of the big named ones build a network of users that can help you find your tracker if you happen to lose it. Understand though that those additional users still have to come within Bluetooth range of your device with the app installed (many still need the app to be running in the background). When they do, it will anonymously notify the owner of the location of the tracker.

This feature could be called many things. Crowd GPS, Crowd Locate, Crowd Lost and Found, Crowd Search, Community Search, Community Finder, etc. It's all the same thing. Once you pick a brand, though, only that brand's app will find that brand's Bluetooth tracker. There's no way for one brand to find other brands tracker yet, but I do believe it will be coming.  Since only one brand will find its own brand, the larger the brand, meaning the more massive the community, the higher the chance that someone with a phone and specific tracker's app will come near your tracker if you lose it. Each area is different. So even though one brand might have sold 6 million trackers, you could have more users from another brand in your area. It's impossible to know what brand has more users in your area, no matter what that company advertises. I did a video testing out the world's largest lost & found advertised by Tile. Check it out above, and you'll see what I mean better.

Last but not least, there are trackers out there that have even more additional features. Most of which are not 100% perfect working order. The list of features included in and out range notifications (tethers), built-in accelerometer to detect movement,  a multiple functional buttons that can do all sorts of stuff, including taking a selfie, control your music, make a call, send an SMS, or pretty much any feature that can be used with IFTTT.

If you have any questions, please contact me on my Discord here - https://mdfm.co/Discord

The START of the MDFM BLOG

That's right! I decide to write a blog for my website and for the whole world to see it. Don't worry I'm still going to be doing my YouTube videos on average of about once a week but I figure why not also write a blog to expand on about some of the cool things that I talk about in my videos, plus anything else I want to write about. Now most of these won't just be closed caption of my videos but instead it will be additional information and I'll talk about different things that support my videos and vice versa. I hope you like it and if you want me to write about something specific, I'm all ears. 

Please subscribe to my blog so you'll get notified every time I put out a new one.