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How to find AirTags and other Bluetooth trackers with your Android phone
Keep an eye on what's keeping an eye on you
AirTags and other Bluetooth trackers are meant to make your life easier. You can use them to find your keys or purse, track your luggage, or keep tabs on important items. Although they're commonly called Bluetooth trackers, AirTags and some other similar devices use both Bluetooth and ultra-wideband (AKA UWB) for location tracking. Due to their small size, Bluetooth trackers can be easily lost or misplaced. They can be misused by thieves and stalkers to track your location and belongings without your knowledge.
How to use Safety Check on your Pixel Watch
Alert your friends and family when you're in a dangerous situation
The Google Pixel Watch and Pixel Watch 2 have extensive functionality, including excellent safety features. One of these, Safety Check, shares your location with your emergency contacts if you don't check in at a set time.
The Pixel Personal Safety app: What it is and how to use it
Learn how to set up Google's Pixel Personal Safety app for help after a car crash or in an emergency and location check-ins when you feel vulnerable
The last few years have seen many Android companies create or strengthen their safety services. Google's Pixel Personal Safety app was designed to bring help when you're in danger or to keep track of your location and situation when you feel vulnerable. Originally a Google Pixel exclusive, the Personal Safety app is now compatible with several Android phones. To see if the Personal Safety app works on your phone, visit the Play Store. If you own a Samsung device, the company has its own implementation called Samsung SOS.
Google wants to turn your Pixel phone into a car dashcam
Pixel’s Personal Safety app could soon add a new dashcam option
Pixel flagships with their Tensor chipsets aren't in the same league as some of the top Android phones that use a Qualcomm processor when it comes to raw performance. But Google has always amazed us by how much it is able to get out of Pixel phones powered by its custom chip. Recent Pixels, including the newest Pixel 7a, are some of the smartest Android phones with their handy features like the At a Glance widget and Magic Editor. And Google is planning to make them even more useful by letting your Pixel phone double up as a dashcam for your car.
If you use the Personal Safety app on your Pixel, you're going to need to update your permissions soon
And here's how you can do it
One of the lesser-known perks of Pixel ownership is the Personal Safety app, which controls car crash detection and the Safety Check feature, alerting specific contacts with your phone's location if you fail to check in, or calling emergency services if you get into a wreck. It's a great and pretty unique app, but Google's subtly changing how it works at a technical level, adjusting which app it gets permissions from to provide that functionality. If you want to keep using it, you'll need to adjust your location permissions by September 15th to maintain full functionality.
Mahatma Gandhi once said that the true measure of any society could be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members, but how do you juggle caring for the most vulnerable while still allowing them their dignity? In a society that must often family members in assisted living, could Amazon's Alexa Together help your aging loved ones live independently? Like most technology, its impact depends on how you use it. Let's break down what exactly Alexa Together is to determine if it can help you keep an eye on mom or dad without a live-in caregiver.
Car crash detection may soon shed its Google Pixel exclusivity
A Personal Safety update hints at the feature's arrival on more devices
The Pixel 4 was full of firsts for Google, and aside from that Soli radar chip and all its Jedi-style antics, the phone introduced us to Google's automatic car crash detection. The idea may seem trivial to some, but it can legitimately be a lifesaver in a crash, alerting emergency services if the user's not able to do so. Sadly, the feature has remained a Pixel-exclusive almost three years after its debut, and is further limited to the Pixel 3 and later. That all may be set to change soon, though, as clues in Personal Safety's latest update hint at wider availability.
Google Pixels are getting a new Fast Emergency Dialer for local police, fire, and medical services
It may not work everywhere, but you have the old emergency dialer to fall back on
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Google includes a lot of safety features with its Pixel phones. Services like car crash detection, assisted emergency calls, and spontaneous video recording are all part of its Personal Safety app and have proven to help in times of distress. Google’s now adding another experience to the app, called the Fast Emergency Dialer.
Google is making sure future Android phones offer users these safety and emergency options
Required options for GMS access
Google Mobile Services — or GMS — is such an essential suite of apps for Android users, devices without it often have a hard time finding an audience. With Chrome, YouTube, Maps, and more all bundled together, some of today's most vital apps are all included in one single package. To qualify for GMS, manufacturers have to meet a set of standard requirements. A new rule for Android 12 puts a focus on the "Safety & emergency" settings page on your phone, ensuring every Android user has a baseline level of protection against allergic reactions, earthquakes, and more.
Google Pixel’s Personal Safety app can now automatically record video during an emergency (APK Download)
And it can share it with your emergency contact
The Personal Safety app is one of the perks of having a Pixel phone. It provides you with access to many special safety features, such as car crash detection, crisis detection, safety checking, and more. It makes sure you get the help you need in a situation where you can't reach out for it yourself. The latest update to the app adds the ability to automatically record a video during a crisis using the Emergency SOS feature.
Android is making it easier than ever to make a crucial emergency call
An updated emergency call screen brings quick shortcuts
Calling emergency numbers should be as simple as possible. In many countries, though, you have to remember several numbers, and most people end up forgetting them until they really need them. Android is now removing the guessing game out of this potentially life-or-death situation by making sure you can always reach the emergency service you need.
Android 12's new 'Safety & emergency' menu puts all your health and contact information in one place
It links directly with Pixel's Personal Safety app
Smartphones give us the benefit of always being connected, making them a key instrument in any emergency situation. Google is looking to capitalize on that for Android 12 by boosting some of its most essential features. An all-new "Safety & emergency" section has been added to the settings menu, giving you quick access to your most vital details and linking directly to the Pixel's Personal Safety app.
Back during the first Developer Preview for Android 12, a new iOS-like Emergency SOS feature was spotted that let you panic-smash your power button five times to make an emergency call. The feature disappeared from Settings in subsequent releases, but it's back as of Beta 1.
Android 12 adds Emergency SOS with five taps of the power button
A quick way to call emergency services without looking at your screen
Google has added a new Emergency SOS feature to Android 12. After turning it on, five quick presses of the power button will launch a countdown to call 911, or presumably your local emergency services. The number to call for help can be changed, but note that changing it from the default will require your phone to be unlocked in order to work. The countdown tells you to "stay calm" and gives five seconds to cancel with a swipe.
Google adds status updates to emergency sharing in Personal Safety app
Share info about calls and low battery updates as well as your location
The changelog for the last version of Google's Personal Safety app — available exclusively for Pixel phones — mentioned that emergency sharing "now includes information about your phone call status and battery levels" but we didn't find these features in the app itself. As a new version of the app rolls out, these new status updates are becoming available, even to those still on older versions.
Google Contacts gets new indicator for emergency contacts on Pixel phones
Might be a good time to make sure paramedics won't call your ex if you're in an accident
You may not know this, but many phones let you add information about yourself that's accessible even when the phone is locked — the idea is to help first responders help you in an emergency even if you can't talk to them. On Pixel phones, Google Contacts now highlights which of your contacts will be shown in that emergency information.
Google's third Pixel Feature Drop update has been announced with a handful of new features and tweaks for the company's line of phones. While we might yet find more minor changes hiding inside when it rolls out, we're told there are four broad categories of new features Pixel owners can look forward to: New Adaptive Battery tweaks to stretch out battery life, Recorder app integration with the Google Assistant and Google Docs, tools to better manage your sleep, and new personal safety features including crisis alerts and a "safety check" feature that notifies emergency contacts if you don't respond to a scheduled check-in.
A hallmark feature of the Pixel 4 is its ability to detect car crashes and call 911 for you (only in the US). This smart option can potentially save many lives, but it's not enabled by default on the device. Here's how you can turn it on.
At the start of the month, we learned that the Pixel 4 was likely to get a neat safety feature that would detect when its user has been involved in a car accident before alerting the emergency services. This potentially life-saving capability has now been confirmed by Google, although it's exclusive to the US for English language users, to begin with at least.
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- We've got the APK for the updated version of the Personal Safety app available for your downloading pleasure over on APK Mirror, but sadly the car crash detection functionality isn't live for us. One of our tipsters who previously saw it on his device reports that the option is now missing for him, so it may have been disabled.
Back in May, we reported on a possible feature coming to Pixel phones with Android 10: automatic car crash detection. Little was known about it at that early stage, but we reasoned it could offer to contact first responders and pre-defined emergency contacts in case of an accident. XDA Developers' Mishaal Rahman has received an update to the Emergency Information app on his Pixel 2 XL and noticed it has been renamed "Personal Safety." A description on the Play Store along with some screenshots outlines that the app will be responsible for car crash detection and automatic 911 calling.