How I Recovered my Lost Droid Phone

[Gadget Man]

Let me set the stage: I’m a cop in Los Angeles. My partner & I stop at a downtown Denny’s for breakfast. My Droid phone somehow slides off of my belt as I’m exiting the car to go inside Denny’s, and falls to the pavement. The downtown traffic is loud, so I don’t hear it fall. After breakfast I drive back to the station to do some paperwork, when I realize that my phone is missing.

I remembered that I installed an app on my phone called "Where’s My Droid" that helps locate lost or stolen phones. With my partner’s phone, I sent a text to my Droid, with the words "GPS my Droid". I receive back an automated text message from my phone with the GPS coordinates of my phone’s location. I Google the coordinates and locate my phone on a residential street about 6 miles from where I last saw it. My partner & I jump in our patrol car and head to the street that was sent back by my phone. I have an officer working the station desk, text "GPS my Droid" to my phone several more times while we were en route, in case the phone and the person now in possession of it go mobile.

According to Google Earth, the GPS coordinates placed the phone three houses north of a major cross street. We drive up and sure enough, we find a group of individuals hanging out in front of that very house. One of them has my phone in his hand. You should have seen his face when I asked him where he got it. He immediately said he found it on the street in front of Denny’s earlier and that he was about to call the police to report that he had found it. I really didn’t believe him, but I was glad to have my phone back, so he escaped going to jail for receiving stolen property. I thanked him for taking good care of my phone, and drove away.

Afterwards another buddy of mine showed me a different app called Lookout, that works very similar to Where’s My Droid. The beauty of this app is that you don’t have to send a text to get the GPS coordinates. You simply log onto the Lookout website and it tells you where your phone is. It also allows you to activate a siren on the phone for better detection when it’s nearby. I added this app as well.

You gotta love technology!

Craig

[Lorna]

Since I have a cheap cell phone, I just have as my first line in the phone book ":( I'm lost please call" and it connects to my husbands phone. I put the same on his phone. Yes, I have lost my phone before and yes we did get a phone call from the person who found it.

[RickO]

I love technology too! DW just installed Lookout on her new Droid.

BTW, were you kidding in that part about the guy avoiding jail for receiving stolen property?

Rick

[TXiceman]

My wife's new Camry has a GPS tracking device that I can log onto a computer any time, go to their site and find the location of the car within seconds.

Ken

[Gadget Man]

Originally Posted by RickO

BTW, were you kidding in that part about the guy avoiding jail for receiving stolen property?

Yes and no. He admitted finding the phone next to my patrol car, and said he saw us sitting inside Denny's, yet he didn't make any attempt to contact us to report finding the phone. He instead took it home, where he again made no attempt to report it to the police.

Had he used the phone and claimed it as his own when I jammed him, he definitely would have gone to jail. Since those two things didn't occur, I thanked him for admitting that it wasn't his, and gave him $10 for beer (that's all I had).

Craig

[Dave and Jaime]

Originally Posted by TXiceman

My wife's new Camry has a GPS tracking device that I can log onto a computer any time, go to their site and find the location of the car within seconds.

Ken

The Droids have a google application (part of Maps) called Latitude. You can set it up to tell you the GPS location of friends (who also have droids) and vice versa. (The friends must consent) But this allows my wife to know my GPS location (OK, my phone's location) and me to know hers. Wouldn't that be useful to parents when their kids say they are at the "library, studying"?

Great safety innovation, too.

[Rick Long]

Lets see... If I had a wife, I'd have to get another cell phone to use when I left mine at work so I could say I was working late

[wa8yxm]

Good story though I feel sorry for his mother (Who likely had to clean his brown smelly underwear)

I lost my el-cheapo phone the other day (monday) Did not know it till Tuesday, Called it and the nice reciptionist at the doctor's office answered and told me where it was.. Nice of her. Picked it up a bit later in the day.

Problem: Since my OWNLY "Car" is over 37' long by 8.5 feet wide by 12.5 feet high (Motor home) There is no parking near the office, and it's HILL country... Thankfully I found a lot near the Sheriff's sub station that is "on a level" with the doctor's office and a trail through the woods (Service drive for water and sewer) that connects the two lots.. Easy bike ride

[Georgia]

love the droid story!!! My apt in NYC got broken into one day and they took a few stupid things as well as my cell phone. Got a call later that evening from a caller . who immediately hung up and then called right back claiming they "found" my phone and for a "small reward" I could have it back. I asked where I could meet him to "pay" him... He hung up. funny thing... the first time he called he had his caller ID still on and I got the number ( another home number in Brooklyn).... called my station house and a couple of the boys on duty dropped by the address.... and lo and behold.. lots of stolen stuff. Long story short...Guy went to jail, but I never got my phone back. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people can be...

cheers
geo


cheers
geo

[hondo122]

Originally Posted by TXiceman

My wife's new Camry has a GPS tracking device that I can log onto a computer any time, go to their site and find the location of the car within seconds.

Ken

Does she know about it?

[Revodoc]

Somehow lost my iphone while 4 wheelin in the mountains with a new gf... I had been taking pics with it and ALWAYS set it back in the same exact place and all of a sudden its gone... I still think she grabbed it to go through past phone call, pics and email. I sure wish I would have had a tracking device on it... Who knows I might still be seeing her

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by Revodoc

I sure wish I would have had a tracking device on it...

You do (did).

If you had a MobileMe account, you go to "Find My iPhone" and a Google map appears with the location of your iPhone down to street level.

If you still can't find it, you can display a message on it (or a sound), lock it, or wipe it so no one can use it.

[powerboatr]

that is freaky
not the find a phone app
but police at dennys

no disrespect but you fell right into that stereotype

[W8EB]

Does the IPhone have something like that?