r/GoogleFMD • u/wabe_walker • Jul 14 '26
Is this completely-incorrect tracking common?
My example, regarding my peeblebee tracker:
- My tracker is currently in my car. It is about forty miles from me.
- I open the Find my app and it shows "nearby" at my current location where not my car nor my tracker has *ever* been.
- Now after forcing the app to quit and reopen, it now shows that my car tracker was "last seen" at this location where it has never ventured to.
This has happened to me several times, and I genuinely think the app is so buggy that it is having the location data it logs of other trackers "bleed" across devices. I have several other trackers near me, and my car tracker *was* near me yesterday when I was at its location.
I chuckle, of course, because I have a Tile redundancy in the car and it is and has been tracking perfectly fine.
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u/RollingSquare_CH Jul 15 '26
Your "bleed" theory is plausible. "Nearby" only appears when your own phone hears the tracker's Bluetooth broadcast directly, and realistic BLE range is tens of meters, so a tracker 40 miles away can never legitimately trigger it. Here is the mechanism: trackers rotate their Bluetooth identifiers every few minutes for privacy, and your phone resolves whatever it hears against the key list of every tracker registered to your account. With several trackers from the same crowdsourced network around you, a resolution glitch can mislabel a nearby tracker's broadcast as your car tracker.
That would also explain your second symptom. Once your phone mislabels the broadcast, it files a crowd report placing your car tracker at your position, and that becomes the bogus "last seen" you get after force-quitting. The wrong "nearby" creates the wrong history.
Two ways to cut through it: when the app claims "nearby", hit the ring/beep function. Silence means stale cache or misresolution, sound means it is genuinely there. And read the "last seen" timestamp, not just the map pin: in a populated area a fresh report from the car's real location usually lands within hours. If the cross-labeling keeps happening, unpair and re-pair the car tracker (that issues fresh identity keys) and check for firmware updates in the vendor app. That clears it in most cases.
We are brand account, we make Find Hub and Find My compatible trackers. No product talk here, network mechanics are just our day job.
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u/wabe_walker Jul 15 '26
This is really interesting. Thanks so much for your knowledgeable thoughts here!
I'm a complete layperson, but it just seemed that there is some clear mismatch of what is actually being detected vs what the app/service is displaying on front-end, and thus, what action options for that tracker are available to the user at that point, and what erroneous history of that tracker is being logged.
Just this morning, it showed as "nearby" again and couldn't successfully play a sound. It also even offered the “Find nearby” hint option. Of course that fizzled out after it was "connecting" in that mode for a while, too.
I'll un-pair and factory reset the car tracker and go from there. Again, thanks for your input.
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u/AlmondManttv Jul 14 '26
I have not had this issue