A new APK teardown form 9to5Google has shown that Google's Find My Device offline network support capabilities are coming to Wear OS and Pixel Watches. The offline abilities are only available on Android phones, tablets and trackers.
The latest version of the Pixel Watch app has a new Find My Watch setting. According to 9to5's breakdown, the setting will “Allow to remotely locate, lock, and erase your watch, even when your watch is offline.” Currently, the app has a shortcut to the Find My Device app.
To find a Pixel Watch or Wear OS device today, the smartwatch must be paired to a phone or have an LTE connection. Otherwise, Find My Device can't be leveraged to discover the watch.
The addition of the offline capability lets the watch be discovered by the crowdsourced network of Android devices that Google uses to track the devices. It should work when the wearable isn't connected to the internet.
The settings should let you turn Offline Find My Device on or off.
As Google's Find My Device only launched in the last few months, it might not be up to snuff yet. An unofficial test found that an Android tracker struggled to ping appropriately compared to Apple's AirTag trackers. It's possible that in the US, where the iPhone is more popular, there aren't enough Android devices to make the service work as intended.
As Google works to build out its network capabilities, it should get better. With that in mind, it could be some time before this feature comes to Pixel Watches. It's also unclear from the code found by 9to5 if this feature is for all Pixel Watches or just the upcoming Pixel Watch 3. We don't see why the older watches wouldn't get access to the service, but it should be mentioned.
Presumably, other Wear OS devices should also receive this feature as Find My Device is not hardware-dependent.
As a reminder, APK teardowns look at the code of Google updates to the Play Store. The code discovered hints at features and apps in Google's works. However, it doesn't necessarily mean that the feature will get released or the version currently in the code will be the version that does make it out.
