![]() ![]() But there are also limits to each technology, Haro says, and some known glitches. When data from each of these sources is combined, you can be pretty confident in the phone's location. Cell Networks – Your cellular provider tracks your phone's location by calculating its relative position to cell towers.Your phone automatically detects nearby routers, which can be used to calculate your location. WiFi – Companies like Skyhook have mapped the physical location of millions of WiFi routers.GPS – Using “trilateration” (sometimes called triangulation), the phone calculates its distance from three GPS satellites to pinpoint its location within 50 to 100 meters (164-328 feet).The apps rely on data from several different sources: Haro has a theory about what's going on with the unlucky Atlanta couple, but first we had him explain how phone location apps like Life360 and Find My iPhone work. You can even see the precise location of each family member - or their phones, at least - on a private family map. Dad can receive an automatic notification when the kids are at school or when mom leaves work. To get some answers, we called Alex Haro, president of Life360, an app that lets family members keep track of each other using phone location data. (Police ransacked the house but found nothing.) Not everyone buys the couple's explanation - the app got it wrong - and the cops once held them for questioning when the smartphone of a missing girl was tracked to their house. ![]() ![]() They understand how aggravating it is have your phone stolen, but it's even more aggravating to be accused of stealing it, again and again. They're 20-something professionals whose house address repeatedly and inexplicably shows up on phone locator apps like Apple's Find My iPhone. Who will it be this time: a rowdy group of teenagers, a ticked-off dude with tattoos or the cops? They all come to this nondescript house in the suburbs of Atlanta looking for one thing - their stolen smartphones. ![]() They approach the door apprehensively, even a little afraid. There's a hard knock at the door, enough to wake Christina Lee and Michael Saba from a dead sleep. Sometimes it happens in the middle of the night. App developers love cellular data because it sucks up less battery life than GPS or WiFi tracking, but its also the least accurate. ![]()
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