According to Kuba Wojciechowski, developer and reliable leaker for everything related to Google, the Mountain View firm should soon market its own Air Tag.
Tracking devices or trackers, democratized by the Tile company, make it easy to find objects by locating them. Apple has its own model, as does Samsung with the Galaxy SmartTag+.
A tracker compatible with Fast Pair and supporting Ultra Wideband
Google should track its homemade product soon. Wojciechowski has “ discovered references which indicate that the company is working on location beacon support in Fast Pair, its technology for quickly pairing nearby Bluetooth devices. He assures that the firm is developing its own tracking device that can be used with the latter.
The product is dubbed Grogu internally, like Baby Yoda in the series. The Mandalorian, and developed by the teams of Google Nest, which does not necessarily mean that it will be released under the aegis of Nest, recalls the developer. Google’s smart tracker will be compatible with Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology, which incidentally offers much better accuracy than Bluetooth for locating lost items. Using UWB, it is possible to display both distance estimates and directions to a beacon.
Note that the Pixel 6 Pro and Pixel 7 Pro smartphones support this connectivity, but its use is, for the time being, very limited. “ It’s worth mentioning that Google is currently working with several chipmakers to get their products to support the new Fast Pair technology to allow OEMs to develop their own trackers without too much difficulty. “says Wojciechowski.
A possible presentation in May
The device will have a small internal speaker to sound alerts, much like Apple’s AirTag. It should also be launched in several colorways. For now, there is no additional information about the Google tracker, which could be unveiled at the I/O 2023 conference in May.
Its marketing could, in turn, coincide with that of the next Pixel smartphones in the fall.
Sources: The Verge, SamMobile
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