What is Reddit's opinion of Android Lost?

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my wife's Android phone was stolen 2 weeks ago. I downloaded a free app called Android Lost. You register on their site, and it pushes it to your device remotely. You use your gmail account that is linked to your device.

Long story short, it provides a ton of information, and I was able to contact the police and retrieve her phone within 2 hours of installing the app.

I don't know for sure that it would work on a tablet, but it might. http://www.androidlost.com/

edit here is a second app that allows AndroidLost to work on a tablet. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androidlost.jumpstart&hl=en

You can actually remotely install AndroidLost via the Google Play website, and control your phone via SMS, even after it's stolen. You can lock it, wipe it, view on map, get call logs, etc.

I don't see many people talk about Android lost but I've been using it for a while now and never had problems. ITS FREE!

Can someone tell me why this is not as good as Cerberus? One thing I really like is you can pop up a message, and when they click OK it will take a front facing picture.

Features:

• read sent and received SMS messages
• wipe phone
• lock phone
• erase SD card
• locate by GPS or network
• start alarm with flashing screen
• send SMS from web page
• message popup
• forward calls
• remote install
• phone status: battery, imei, etc.
• remote SMS alarm
• remote SMS lock and unlock
• remote SMS erase SD card
• remote SMS wipe phone
• remote SMS APN control
• start/stop GPS
• start/stop WIFI
• hide from launcher
• email when SIM card is changed
• get call list
• take picture with front camera
• take picture with rear camera
• make your phone speak with text-to-speech
• SMS message command
• SMS speak command
• lock timeout
• restore settings on boot
• record sound from microphone
• start and stop data connection from SMS
• start and stop WIFI connection from SMS
• content browser prototype

The app does no polling to a server, so there is no extra battery usage. More details on the control web site: http://www.androidlost.com.

It's pretty much a given that you need to have some sort of tracking/theft recovery software installed before you lose your device. My brother in law left his Verizon Ellipsis 4G tablet in a hotel room in Wyoming a few months ago and the manager said they didn't find it in the room (even though they called an hour after leaving and about 3 hours before check-in time). The only thing I could find that claimed to be able to track devices without being installed beforehand was Android Lost. I couldn't get it to work with his tablet, he had a ton of crap installed on there and I think it didn't have space to install it even though it said it did. It sure would be nice to be able to uninstall apps remotely, then it might've worked. If your device can accept SMS, just install the app. If it's a tablet (like in his case) you push a quickstart app to it, then the main app.

Since I couldn't get that to work, I found that I could log in to Google Maps using my brother in law's Google account and see the device's location history. If you head over to (https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/) you can see where the device has been. In his case, I was able to watch it go from the Best Western about 30 miles south to a trailer park. The police said it technically wasn't theft, since he left it in the room but they didn't know that. I noticed they'd been reading his emails, so I sent an email to the account stating that I am tracking the tablet & gave them the name of the trailer park and that I'm in contact with the police. I told them to turn the tablet in at the front desk the next day and we wouldn't press charges. The next day the Best Western manager called and said they were shipping the tablet to my brother in law, so it all worked out fine! Ever since then, all my relatives that use Android are now Cerberus users.

It's probably too late for anyone to notice this but I have bought and paid for seekdroid, tried the demo version of cerebus and many other phone tracking apps. Intially cerebus was my hands down winner like many here seem to think. I was just about to buy it before I came across Android Lost. From what I can see it has all the features of cerebus for free and seems to work amazingly well with excellent google account intergration.

Market Link is here -> https://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidlost&hl=en

Description - copy and pasted from website.

Lost your android? We will help you find it. See http://www.androidlost.com Remote control your android phone from the internet or by SMS.

Features:

• read SMS inbox and sent
• wipe phone
• lock phone
• erase SD card
• locate by GPS or network
• start alarm with flashing screen
• send SMS from web page
• message popup
• forward calls
• remote install
• phone status: battery, imei, etc
• remote SMS alarm
• remote SMS lock and unlock
• remote SMS erase sd card
• remote SMS wipe phone
• remote SMS APN control
• start stop GPS
• start stop WIFI
• hide from launcher
• email when SIM is changed
• get call list
• take picture with front camera
• take picture with rear camera
• make your phone speak with text to speech
• SMS message command
• SMS speak command
• lock timeout
• restore settings on boot
• record sound from microphone
• start and stop data connection from SMS
• start and stop WIFI connection from SMS
• content browser prototype * The app does no polling to a server, so there is no extra battery usage.

DISCLAIMER: this is NOT my app but I feel it deserves a LOT of respect. It's free, you don't have to sign up (just use your google account) and it has features that other anti-theft apps don't have.

Android Lost

• read SMS inbox and sent
• wipe phone
• lock phone
• erase SD card
• locate by GPS or network
• start alarm
• send SMS from web page
• message popup
• forward calls
• remote install
• phone status: battery, imei, etc
• remote SMS alarm
• remote SMS lock and unlock
• start stop GPS
• start stop WIFI
• hide from launcher
• email when SIM is changed
• get call list

Android Lost. It's not pretty, but can do so much more than device manager including remotely taking pictures, finding the location, play audible messages, remote wipe, call forwarding, email notification of SIM card changes, call list, etc. Oh, and you don't even need to have it installed on the phone. You can push the app to your device via text message. It's also free.

http://www.androidlost.com/

I'm currently testing http://www.androidlost.com/, like it so far. Not as polished as Cerberus, but seems to be doing fine! The cool thing is when you install it from the playstore you can already track your phone (but I think you can't use the advanced features right away).

Good question. Part of the reason I moved from Cerberus was that the devs seemed a bit shady, but I'll admit I haven't really investigated this app beyond searching the support forums for privacy related topics and reading the relevant sections of the guide. Perhaps you could do the same and see what you make of it.

Its Sprint with unlimited data so I'm cool with that. Its android so I changed my password with gmail. I'm attempting to wipe data remotely with http://www.androidlost.com but I think the phone is out of batteries. I geolocated it with Plan B around 1 AM last night, which is usually about the time that my phone dies on a typical day. I'm hoping whoever took it plugs it in over the next day or so. I don't think knocking on doors will be much help either. I think that the GPS is pretty accurate, as Plan B sends out 5 geolocations, 4 of which gave the same address, which makes me think the phone is stationary there.

Don't waste your money on McAfee. You can use an amazing, free service such as Android Lost for your phone. You can not only locate your phone with it (you can use either Internet or SMS to make the phone enable WiFi, mobile data, and/or GPS, then make it play an awful sound as powerfully as possible and ignoring all volume and mute controls to hear where it comes from), but also communicate with somebody who's not a thief and wants to return the phone, otherwise but spy on the thief with video and audio, remotely wipe your data and haunt the thief forever. In that case, you should also kill your phone with the IMEI number (which Android Lost will recover for you if you don't have at hand).

Bear in mind a paranoid burglar might carry a faraday bag with them to wrap their loot with, and assuming they have a room with concrete walls all around (doesn't even have to be underground, I barely get any signals on my 2nd floor office) to unload the devices & taking off the batteries, your tracking scheme is moot.

So, assuming the burglar simply put the bait inside a regular bag and open them in a regular room in an area with cell coverage, a good Android phone with software like Android Lost & Location History enabled should be work. Since the location reading is enhanced with cell tower & wireless information it seen (even if it's not connected to the the tower/router), it can give accurate position inside a room without GPS satellite in sight.

I say good Android phone because in this case you don't want a phone with weak reception, aggressive battery-saving that kills the tracking app, or lackluster battery that give up after an hour of constant tracking. You can get creative by getting those old larger laptop, take out the harddrive/optical drive, stick the phone inside.

But as /u/my027012 said, working with your local police would help so much more. Maybe the phone don't get enough signal to send data, but it can still ping the tower, and the police can request the operator to give the logs. They can also drive around with a stingray to pinpoint the exact location.

Androidlost is amazing.

Find the phone, trigger the cameras, record audio, pull all visited websites, pull texts, pull calls, wipe the phone, ring the phone, a ton of other stuff.

http://www.androidlost.com/#controls_premium

It's a webserver it starts on your phone to recover content on lost phones. As I say, maybe it's been abused but bar asking the dev themselves - I'm unsure why it costs so much.

Uso o Android lost já faz tempo e ele tem essas funções descritas por você e mais algumas. Aceita comandos por SMS e não precisa do Tasker. Vale um teste.

I use Androidlost on all the phones in our house. In addition to the basic controls offered by Android Device Manager, it also has a bunch of additional features. You can also designate certain phone numbers to be able to remotely control the phone. If I lose my phone, I can simply text a command from my wife's phone to make it alarm or text back a map with the GPS location.

I know you can text a message to unlock the phone on its own, but I don't know if you'd find it any more useful than ADM.

With any phone I have I set up http://www.androidlost.com/

When my friend lost her phone I tried to see if the Android Device Manager could even find mine and it could only do it around 25% of the time. I've had Android Lost set up on my phones for about a year and it works every time I lose it. (Fortunate enough to not to have my phone yet!)

Have you tried AndroidLost? I helped a friend find the guy who stole his phone with it, and you don't need to be that tech savvy to use it. You can remotely activate the camera and GPS from your computer, it's pretty cool. PM me if you want and I can help you out.

AndroidLost (site / app) is another site/app that can communicate via text message. Plus, it's free.

For OP, you don't even have to settle for a ring - you can have your phone say a phrase via text-to-speech, such as "Hey, I'm over here, pick me up!" And the "alarm" command ignores the volume setting when playing an alert sound, and flashes the screen as well.

CM(and I think GravityBox) has volume rocker wake. and on my phone, running PAC-Rom, the menu key can quick unlock when you have no password set. is that what you mean? and the Oppo Find 7a has the gesture panel, which opens an app based on a shape you sketch. you want stuff like that?

and Android already has separate volume settings for media, ringtone, notifications, and alarms. so that seems to solve that issue. but I just reread that, and it sounds more like that's an alarm to locate your device. I'd like to know if something like that exists as well. a friend of mine could really use something like that. he's constantly misplacing his phone.

and I just looked, and AndroidLost can do this. I wasn't aware because despite having that app set up on most of my devices, I don't really use it for anything.

This method is hit & miss but it's worth a shot.

1. install Android Lost remotely (from the Play store) - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androidlost
2. Send an SMS container the content "androidlost register" to the device that is lost.
3. If you get that far successfully and then you can keep using the SMS commands to try locate the device - http://www.androidlost.com/#sms

Well, you can use an app like Androidlost, to send an SMS which will put a pop up with e.g. your contact info on the screen. These kind of apps are recommended for any version though.

Hmm, that's interesting as because although androidlost isn't a 'system app', I have in fact put in /system/app to make it (along with having Device Admin Rights) doubly hard to uninstall and was the reason what got me thinking about whether it's just Google who could uninstall apps with Device Admin rights, or naughty people who get access to your Play Store (Yes, I need to make a clockworkmod backup and try this myself. Firstworldproblems when I hear one....)

Thanks for your input!

No antivirus... do not want to slow down my phone for protection I do not need.

But, yes for a recovery app!

I looked for a while and found most of the recovery apps to be lacking in some way, enter Android Lost!

It does an amazing array of things and is free.

Maybe you can try pushing Android Lost to your tablet? http://www.androidlost.com/#getstarted

It says it supports 2.2 and up. It might be worth a shot at least. I'd keep an eye on any important accounts (banks, credit cards, etc) to be safe incase they somehow scraped passwords from the emails that may have been on your tablet.

Install Android Lost via the market. Since you can't see the screen to register it, have a friend text you "androidlost register". Login on the website using your Google account and the sms retrieval option is under controls -> messages. You can also send messages from there or dial from controls -> mobile.