Lost Your Phone? Amazon Echo Can Locate It For You

Luan Chan, Tech Times 12 March 2017, 08:03 pm

Amazon Echo is already a leader in the smart home industry, boasting thousands of skills which offer homeowners a load of convenience with the help of Alexa, though it's voice recognition technology still needs to be improved to avoid chaos at home.

While the Amazon smart home duo is far from perfect, they are still very useful. If you have the tendency to misplace smartphones, Tech Times will show you two ways to program Alexa and locate your smartphone next time you lose it just by dictating commands to the Echo.

The two ways we will discuss below were explained and tested by How-To Geek and the site suggests either installing a third party application on your smartphone or using an online service that Alexa can access. Here are the two ways.

Indoor Search: Install TrackR

Let's go over the pros and cons first. Tracker is a third party application so this naturally means that it will take up space on your smartphone.

The app itself is around 35 MB in size and its main advantage is that it can make your phone ring even if you've set it on silent mode — a dilemma we've all had at one point in our smartphone-owning lives. As for its downside, its third-party Alexa skill is limited since it does not have GPS tracking mode, which is an available service when you purchase the TrackR device and relies on Bluetooth pairing instead.

However, if you think GPS tracking is not really that important for you, then read the instructions below to pair your smartphone with Alexa using TrackR.

Step 1: Download and install the TrackR app. Once installed, open the app and choose "Find Your Phone with Alexa."
Step 2: The app will then prompt you to enable the Alexa skill, which you can do by saying "Alexa, enable the Find My Phone Skill."
Step 3: Pair your device with the Amazon Echo by asking Alexa for the device pin. The app will tell you the proper command for Alexa.
Step 4: When Echo and your smartphone are paired successfully, you can just Alexa to call your phone through TrackR when you lose it in your home. Just say "Alexa, ask TrackR to call my phone" and you should hear it ring in seconds.

Works Anywhere: Use A Web Program

Just like above, this also does not offer GPS tracking; however, since it does not rely on Bluetooth pairing, your phone should still ring even if it is not near the AmazonEcho.

The web service you need is IFTTT, which is a neat applet that allows you to connect your devices and create an IF-THIS-THEN-THAT program for them. In this case, IF you lose your phone THEN ask Alexa (through Echo) to make it ring for you — except when it's on silent or vibrate mode.

We will shorten the instructions since How-To Geek's Craig Lloyd already created an applet so it should be easier for you if you're familiar with the web service.