A yr after launching its Discover My System location monitoring community, Google is including help for extremely wideband (UWB) for extra exact monitoring utilizing suitable telephones and trackers. The community and its Android app are additionally getting a brand new title: Discover Hub.
Google says that UWB might be enabled “later this month.” UWB supplies extra correct monitoring at shut vary than Bluetooth, reporting each distance and route so yow will discover a lacking tracker faster when you’re within the neighborhood. Apple’s AirTag has supported the tech since its launch in 2021, as have Samsung’s SmartTags. Tile’s is now the one main tracker community to lack a UWB choice, because the UWB-enabled Tile Extremely it first introduced approach again in 2021 by no means truly launched.
Nobody might be happier concerning the information than Motorola, which launched its Moto Tag in June 2024 with loads of fanfare round UWB help that has been inactive ever since.
The draw back of UWB is that it requires compatibility from each trackers and telephones. Whereas all of Apple’s trendy iPhones other than the affordable-ish 16E help UWB, help on the Android aspect is spottier. Some Pixel and Galaxy flagships embody UWB chips, however not all of them, although a minimum of the brand new Galaxy S25 Edge does make the lower. Regardless of producing the Moto Tag, even Motorola solely included the tech in a single telephone, the Edge 50 Extremely, which by no means launched within the US.
Alongside the launch of UWB, Google is rebranding its community and app to Discover Hub. That’s doubtless each to distinguish it from Apple’s community — even I nonetheless get Discover My and Discover My System confused with each other — and to replicate Google’s latest inclusion of a “Individuals” tab within the app for monitoring contacts who’ve agreed to share their location with you.
Google additionally introduced that Discover Hub will incorporate satellite tv for pc connectivity “later this yr,” although wouldn’t touch upon the precise satellite tv for pc options it’s bringing to the app. Google’s Pixel 9 telephones already embody a Satellite tv for pc SOS mode for emergency communications outdoors of mobile service. Early subsequent yr you’ll additionally be capable of share trackers’ places with airline employees.
Discover My System has lengthy lagged behind Apple’s equal, arriving later with much less correct monitoring and no UWB help. I spent a number of weeks testing trackers throughout the community final month and located that it had improved considerably since a rocky launch, however marked the dearth of UWB as one factor nonetheless holding it again. Immediately’s replace is a step in the appropriate route.
