Ever lost your phone in a public place and had no idea how to look for it? Or maybe a situation where you traveled in public and lost your phone on the way and have no idea where it is? Or are you the parent of a teenager going through their rebellious phase and half the time have no idea where your kid is?

For all of you who have gone through these situations once or multiple times in your life, you can now take a sigh of relief. Here’s how you can ping a phone and locate it from the comfort of your home.

What Does Pinging a Phone Mean?

Pinging a cell phone traditionally means finding the cell phone tower that received the last signals from that phone.

However, in this modern age of technology, that isn’t the only way to ping a phone. According to the modern definition of the term, pinging a device simply means using the signal towers to send a message to your device.

The signal is then returned via the tower and it gives the exact location of your device. This technology works with the GPS technology that comes pre-installed and activated on your phone.

This GPS technology works with a tracking software and several other tools to find your location with the highest accuracy.

Here are three simple ways to ping a phone:

Method 1:

The latest and easiest way to ping a phone is by using the software that comes preinstalled with most modern smartphones.

This means “Find My Phone” in the case of iOS or “Google’s Location History” for Android. These applications are generally very user- friendly and are very easy to operate.

In times of need, they can help out a lot. Many people aren’t even aware of these apps and have not activated them.

Method 2:

In addition to the pre-installed apps, there are also several third-party apps that are easily available on the App Store or the Google Play Store.

For iOS, you can use “Find My Friends” and in the case of Android, “Where Are You”.

These apps are just as accurate as the preinstalled ones in pinging the exact location. However, the use of third-party apps for tracking purposes might not be considered a very wise decision. Giving your location to such third-party apps at all times might be considered an invasion of privacy.

Method 3:

Another way of locating your phone is by contacting your service provider. Ask them to use their towers to triangulate the phone’s exact location.

However, this is one of those facilities that are available to the government and the law enforcement agencies and is not easily accessible to ordinary citizens.

This technique is still regarded as highly controversial; different governments of the world have been accused at different times of using this technique to keep a check on their citizens which is again, invasion of privacy.

Thus, by using any one of these simple 3 methods steps listed above, you can find the location of your lost cell phone or can track your kid’s exact location.

Now, no matter how much of a rebellious phase your child may be going through, you can take a sigh of relief knowing exactly where they are. Better safe than sorry, right?

FAQs 

  • How to ping a phone that has been switched off?

This is a very interesting question and the simple answer to this is you can not.

Once your device has been switched off, the device stops sending a signal to the towers and therefore it’ is not possible to locate it. The most you can do at that point is to find the last active location.

  • How can I stop my phone from being pinged?

Now that you know how to ping a phone, this is what most people wonder.

After all, privacy is important. Here are some simple ways through which you can make sure that your device is not pinged:

  • Turn off your GPS live location from settings:

As soon as you’re done with this, your phone will no longer send signals to the towers and live tracking software will no longer be able to track you.

  • Airplane mode:

Another option would be to turn on the airplane mode on your device. This will stop sending signals to the nearest GPS tower.

  • Power off:

The best possible way to stop anyone from finding your location would be to power off your device. This way no software or tower would be able to track your location at all.

Here were three of the best ways to ping a phone as well as a few tips for you to make sure you can’t get pinged. Let us know which method you found to be the easiest; we love wearing your views.