Google adds UWB support to its rebranded Find Hub tracker app

Find My Device conscionable became Find Hub.

A twelvemonth aft launching its Find My Device determination tracking network, Google is adding enactment for ultra wideband (UWB) for much precise tracking utilizing compatible phones and trackers. The web and its Android app are besides getting a caller name: Find Hub.

Google says that UWB volition beryllium enabled “later this month.” UWB provides much close tracking astatine adjacent scope than Bluetooth, reporting some region and absorption truthful you tin find a missing tracker quicker erstwhile you’re successful the vicinity. Apple’s AirTag has supported the tech since its motorboat successful 2021, arsenic person Samsung’s SmartTags. Tile’s is present the lone large tracker web to deficiency a UWB option, since the UWB-enabled Tile Ultra it first announced mode backmost successful 2021 ne'er really launched.

No 1 volition beryllium happier astir the quality than Motorola, which launched its Moto Tag successful June 2024 with plentifulness of fanfare astir UWB enactment that has been inactive ever since.

The downside of UWB is that it requires compatibility from some trackers and phones. While each of Apple’s modern iPhones isolated from the affordable-ish 16E enactment UWB, enactment connected the Android broadside is spottier. Some Pixel and Galaxy flagships see UWB chips, but not each of them, though astatine slightest the caller Galaxy S25 Edge does marque the cut. Despite producing the Moto Tag, adjacent Motorola lone included the tech successful a azygous phone, the Edge 50 Ultra, which ne'er launched successful the US.

Alongside the motorboat of UWB, Google is rebranding its web and app to Find Hub. That’s apt some to differentiate it from Apple’s web — even I inactive get Find My and Find My Device confused with 1 different — and to bespeak Google’s recent inclusion of a “People” tab successful the app for tracking contacts who’ve agreed to stock their determination with you.

Google besides announced that Find Hub volition incorporated outer connectivity “later this year,” though wouldn’t remark connected the circumstantial outer features it’s bringing to the app. Google’s Pixel 9 phones already see a Satellite SOS mode for exigency communications extracurricular of cellular service. Early adjacent twelvemonth you’ll besides beryllium capable to share trackers’ locations with hose staff.

Find My Device has agelong lagged down Apple’s equivalent, arriving aboriginal with little close tracking and nary UWB support. I spent respective weeks testing trackers crossed the web past month and recovered that it had improved substantially since a rocky launch, but marked the deficiency of UWB arsenic 1 happening inactive holding it back. Today’s update is simply a measurement successful the close direction.