How many times have you or someone you know been stopped from rushing out of the house by the simple act of forgetting where you put your phone down last? If you don’t have anyone immediately available to call it for you, it could be a hunt at times depending on how bad your habits are. Well, did you know you can ask Alexa or Google Assistant speakers for help if you have one close enough to hear your voice?
Not everyone knows you can pull this off, but it’s an easy task for both, and even easier with a Google speaker. We will quickly walk you through the process of both.
Google Assistant
If you are one of those who chose Google over Amazon in the speaker wars, you got lucky when it comes to this trick, as all you have to do is say “Hey Google, Find my phone!“. It will tell you that it can cause the default ringtone to go off at max volume, and ask you for permission. Upon telling it yes, it will trigger your phone to ring. Once you have found the phone and unlocked the screen, it will stop. Congratulations, your phone has been found!
Amazon Alexa
If you chose Amazon in the speaker wars, the process is slightly more complicated since it seems you need to enable a skill to do just about anything out of the norm–this is one of those situations. You are going to want to register with IFTTT.com (if you aren’t already). From there you have two choices.
- You can use the recipe created by Amazon. Head over to the “Tell Alexa to find your phone” (located here).
- When you activate the skill, it will start asking your for the needed permissions and information. First, it will have you log into your Amazon account (whichever one is associated to your speaker/s). Then, it will ask for your phone number (of the phone you’d like to keep an eye on), and send you a four digit pin via a phone call. Enter your pin and you will be taken to the final screen where it gives you the option to give the action a title (this is what you would tell Alexa to trigger it)–like “find my phone”. Hit save and you will be ready to test it out. Now go to your Alexa speaker and say “Alexa, trigger find my phone”, and it will call your phone.
- This method actually calls your phone from a number registered by IFTTT.com, and it rings at whatever volume you have your phone set to. So hopefully your phone isn’t on silent. It isn’t the most convenient way of doing it since you have to remember to add “trigger” to your verbal request every time. However, it does enable the option for you to take advantage of it when you need it nonetheless.
- You can use the recipe created by IFTTT. Head over to “Ask Alexa to call your phone” (located here)
- This one is a little more useful as you don’t have to say “trigger” in the command.
- Enable the recipe and you can then pull it off by simply saying “Alexa, call my phone”. You can also name it (just like the other) whatever you want. By default, you have “call my phone”, however you can name it to “find my phone” or whatever floats your boat. However, if you do name it, you are back to having to say “trigger” in the command (ie, “Alexa, trigger find my phone”. You can even customize the the message in which you hear if you actually answered the call and gave a listen.
There is of course a number of other recipes you can search out that does the same thing, created by random users. All of which pretty much do exactly the same thing. Regardless of which one you decide to go with, give it a try, and congratulations, you just found your phone!
