Samsung SmartThings Find Members Service Lets You Ask Others For Help

Whenever we lose something, one of our first reactions is to ask people for help. We often rely on family members and friends, sometimes even strangers, in the search for lost property. Crowdsourcing has actually become more common on the Internet today, at least when it comes to asking questions or recommendations. That kind of social-based solution has started to also become trendy in item tracking circles, and Samsung's SmartThings Find is adding a new Members service that essentially turns it into a social network.

SmartThings Find has become Samsung's answer to Apple's Find My network and even Android's more generic Find My Device. With the addition of the new Galaxy SmartTag and SmartTag+, Samsung has also entered the tracker space once dominated by the likes of Tile. Unsurprisingly, Samsung is also jumping on the recent trend that crowdsources the search for a missing item and is now expanding it into a more formal social network.

Traditionally, you can locate a lost smartphone using some Web tool, but that only works with the last known location of the phone based on when it last connected to the Internet. Item trackers like Tile or the new Galaxy SmartTag employes Bluetooth LE and UWB (Ultra-Wide Band) to locate anything, even those that can't connect to the Internet, but that only works when you're within range of them. The new solution involves employing the help of strangers who have enrolled in a similar program that could help you pinpoint an item's location if said strangers' phones are near the trackers.

Of course, not everyone might be comfortable asking for the help of complete strangers, especially since it happens automatically rather than personally. The new SmartThings Find Members service, in contrast, puts a more personal touch to that same idea. It allows you to invite up to 19 people that you personally known and can locate up to 200 devices between those 20 people.

With SmartThings Find Members, you can have finer control over who can view which devices and their locations. It's a convenient solution for familiar or groups of friends who need to keep track of shared possessions without potentially violating their privacy. Samsung hasn't detailed yet when this new feature will be available and in which markets, but the covered devices should be the same as the normal SmartThings Find.