If you live in a house with shared geek loyalties, your competing devices are about to become a little more collaborative. Smart speakers compatible with Google Assistant can now help you find your missing iPhone; all you have to do is say “Hey Google, find me your phone” to send a critical alert to your inappropriate iPhone, forcing it to ring for 25 seconds or until the notification is declined. Critical alerts bypass a device’s notification settings so that your iPhone rings even when it’s turned on silently or in Do Not Disturb mode.
Of course, the smart speaker requirement makes the Google Assistant Find My Phone feature more restrictive on iOS than on Android, which allows Android users to search for their device from any web browser or secondary device connected to their Google account. Fortunately, The Find My Apple app it does essentially the same thing and you can use it from any other Apple device or through the iCloud website.
However, asking your Google Home speaker to ring your iPhone is more convenient than going through an app or webpage for your iPhone to ring remotely.
To start using the Google Assistant Find Phone feature on iOS, you need the Google Home app installed on your iPhone and at least one Google Assistant-enabled smart speaker connected to your account. Then you need to opt in to Google critical notifications and alerts. Home and set up Google Assistant Voice Match.
To enable Critical Alerts in Google Home iOS:
- Open the Google Home app and sign in Settings> Notifications.
- Make sure “Enable notifications” is switched. (If you don’t see this option, notifications are already enabled and you can move on to step 5.)
- Touch “Go to Settings” to open the Google Home notifications menu in the iOS Settings app.
- Select “Notifications” and activate “Allow notifications”.
- Return to the Google Home app and sign in Settings> Notifications> General notifications.
- switch “Critical alerts”. You can now receive critical alerts from the Google Home app.
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The next step is to set up Google Assistant Voice Match if you haven’t already.
- In the Google Home app, tap your Google Account profile icon.
- Go to Wizard settings> Voice match> Add a device.
- Select the devices you want to use “Find my phone” feature, then follow the steps on the screen.
After completing the voice matching process, Google Assistant can now help you find your iPhone – say “Hey Google, find my phone.” Note that this only works if your iPhone is turned on and connected to Wi-Fi or mobile data.
[MacRumors]