Adamya Sharma / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is rolling out location notifications in the Find Hub app for Android.
- You can get alerts when someone sharing their location arrives at or leaves a chosen place.
- The feature already exists in Google Maps, but it fixes a notable gap in Find Hub.
Google’s Find Hub has been steadily growing beyond the basic phone-finding brief, but it has still felt a bit odd that one of Google Maps’ more useful people-tracking features was missing. That gap appears to be closing as Google is rolling out location notifications in the Find Hub app for Android.
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We spotted the feature working in the latest version of Find Hub on Android. When someone is already sharing their location with you, Find Hub can now notify you when they arrive at or leave a specific place, such as home or work.
The option appears from the People tab after you tap on a person who is sharing their location with you. A new Get location notifications button shows up near the bottom of the screen, and tapping it lets you choose whether you want alerts when that person arrives, leaves, or both. You can then set the location based on their current location, your location, or a new place you add manually.
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This isn’t a new idea in Google’s ecosystem. Google Maps has offered location-sharing notifications for some time, and that was part of the frustration when Find Hub first added people tracking. When my colleague Rita tested people finding in Find Hub last year, she noted that Google had effectively moved Maps-style people tracking into Find My Device, but lamented that it had left out handy extras like location notifications.
There are some privacy guardrails, even though it’s not exactly a stalker’s tool — remember, it only works for people who have already shared their location with you. Find Hub tells you that the other person can turn these notifications off at any time, and Google’s support page says they’ll be notified when someone sets up an alert for their location.
Ultimately, this should make Find Hub a more useful place to keep tabs on someone’s progress when they clearly want you to, and save you from having to check your screen every few minutes. We don’t know how universally it has rolled out yet, but you’ll either see the new feature when you update, or you can expect it in the near future.
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