Made a reply of this on Nostr already but this is a Google Play feature that won't work on GrapheneOS. It's just a Android equivalent of Apple's Find My. It uses Bluetooth and it needs to be configured to work like this and also enabled by the OS.
If it's based on hardware, would changing the OS make a difference?
It would make a difference. The Pixels supporting this were released before the feature. It needs to be enabled by the OS. You use software to interact with your hardware all the time and this is no different, if you don't allow it, then it can't do it. A device finder is something a lot of GrapheneOS users seem to request but if that's going to happen it must be an opt-in.
(For some reason I didn't get the @ for this in my notifications... would have replied to this thread faster if I saw this earlier)
Yes please run GrapheneOS or Calyx; many of us prefer Graphene. Easier to install than originally thought. Can do more technical install but web-install is fine for getting started
https://grapheneos.org/install/
Surely it's the last place it phoned-home before the battery died.
A phone can't die, move, then phone-home. At least not independently. That would be a breakthrough in physics.
Perhaps, you need some other device (or even the smart-charger), nearby and plugged in, that some how pings an antenna on the phone.
Like, imagine the phone is dead in the middle of the Saraha dessert, no other devices around. That's very different than if it's surrounded by a bunch of other surveillance tech that could "detect" the pixel-8, and rat on it's location.
This is a Google Play feature that won't work on GrapheneOS. It's an Apple find-my alternative. Bluetooth also needs to be configured and enabled by the OS to make it work that way.
I'm not sure how this tracking works without power but if you have a phone on you and you don't want anyone to know your location you need to block the radio signals.
I wonder if they are using NFC or other devices if it actually works with the power off.
The device finding would be done via Bluetooth, would work similar to Find My where you need to be in reasonable, but not very close proximity of the device.
Is this actually new tech, or are they just marketing it up with the fact that phones that are turned off can still not be truly off and instead operate in very low power?
We have had no issues while we were offline, or we think so. This Google companion of trackers has even reached to such heights where we aren't spared while we are offline.
I only wonder, why do they track everyone? Is everyone a criminal or terrorist?
If we can track the phone, beware, they can track everything from the offline hardware. What technology! Now nobody's spared.
when you do that (airplane mode) then no one can call you either. So at the end you will have nice and expensive wi-fi device :-) Just keep that in mind.
You can do WiFi calling/texting but you're still trusting the mobile network when doing this. If you lack public WiFi then there isn't a lot you can do about this though. You're better off hoping to move people away from these insecure services over time.
That's a feature, not a bug! Using the GSM (phone) network is a big fat GPS co-ordinate on your location. If you don't want your location shared, don't (ever) use GSM.
Plus phone numbers are insecure (sim swaps, interceptions) and are used to easily identify you across numerous services. It's really time we stopped using phone numbers.
Pixel with graphene works great over wifi, generates a unique mac address for every connection.
The only annoying thing is that airplane mode is not on by default (eg after flashing).
Pixel 8 is far above the 7 because it has Hardware Memory Tagging exclusive to it. GrapheneOS is the only OS using it in production right now, but it's an extremely large hardware-based security feature that provides memory safety for memory-unsafe code.
While it sounds boring to things the user sees like the Vanadium browser or what not, it's our biggest security feature of the OS. Almost all major vulnerabilities on the Android platform are to do with memory corruption.
Outside of GrapheneOS, the Pixel 8 also has 7 years of update support. If you aren't the type to buy a phone every couple of years then it's a good choice.