Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking for lost phones?

Re:Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking f... by lucb1e on Thursday January 21, 2016 @05:09PM (#10948832)

> I think these days they have the mobile devices themselves do the mapping, by phoning home with the WiFi hotspots it sees while out and about.

That thought is correct. Google has been doing this for years, popping up an agree-to-continue like screen on Android phones on which everyone clicks "sure, I just want to use GPS now" and then uploads every place they ever go to Google. Mozilla is working on their own version of this to create a variant of a more open nature: https://location.services.mozilla.com

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Re:Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking f... by kuschku on Thursday January 21, 2016 @05:41PM (#10949094)

And it’s horrible when no one activates it, and you’re the first to do so – every minute your phone will activate WiFi, scan, activate GPS, get a lock, and upload the data.

Battery is empty in a few hours.

But, after doing so for a few days in a row, your battery consumption goes down again, probably because it has mapped enough for now.

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Re:Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking f... by egypturnash on Thursday January 21, 2016 @09:32PM (#10950384)

Or maybe because it's not seeing many new SSIDs because you mostly go to the same four or five places in the same routes.

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Re:Why do people keep coming to this couple’s home looking f... by kuschku on Thursday January 21, 2016 @10:14PM (#10950527)

That’s what I meant - it has mapped enough around my home that it doesn’t see new SSIDs anymore.

In the end, I turned off Google’s location service anyway.

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