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Following in the footsteps of Tile, Apple and Samsung, it looks like Google will be the latest Big-Tech company to produce Bluetooth trackers.android researcher Kuba Wojciechowski found the codename for a Google first-party Bluetooth tracker. mandalorian season 3— “Grog”
Wojciechowski found a reference that ticks almost every major box a Bluetooth tracker should have. Speaker, UWB compatible, Bluetooth LE compatible. Wojciechowski also says it’s built by the Nest team. UWB or “ultra-wideband” is a wireless technology that can physically locate an item if you don’t want your tracker to play a ringtone to reveal its location. It requires UWB built into the phone, but can find nearby devices via a compass-like interface. UWB is built into the Pixel 6 Pro, 7 Pro, and other high-end Android devices, but it’s not widely used.
Another interesting wrinkle is Esper’s Mishaal Rahman It was recently posted about the addition of a “locator tag” option to Google’s Fast Pair developer console. Fast Pair is Google’s API for quickly discovering and pairing nearby Bluetooth devices. Instead of digging through settings menus, it gives you pop-ups on your screen. Google’s Fast Pair developer console Third-Party However, it’s a pretty big coincidence that the “Locator Tags” category pops up at the same time as Grogu. This suggests that Google plans to build out his Bluetooth tracker ecosystem for Grogu and involve third-party hardware. Any other reason to add a Bluetooth tracker emulation option to the public developer tools? Google handles the Fast Pair functionality of the host OS (Android), so the dev console is only for third-party Bluetooth devices.
The Tile Bluetooth Tracker is the perfect way to find your car keys, luggage, and other commonly lost items. It’s been a decade since Tile came out, but it wasn’t until Apple replicated the idea with his AirTags that it caught on with big tech companies. Since then, Samsung and now apparently Google decided to enter the market. Unlike Samsung, Tile, and other non-Apple competitors, Google has a secret weapon that could quickly become the #1 or #2 Bluetooth tracker product on the market.
