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The moment you realize you’ve lost a phone is a rush of emotions. Your photos, text messages, contacts, email, and social accounts are all in the hands of a stranger. You feel exposed.
As technology has progressed, methods for tracking lost devices are now as common as seeing Facebook installed on a phone. Doing its part to reunite owners of its Fire Phone, Amazon has made it possible to track, lock, and remotely wipe a lost phone. The feature doesn’t require you to install any additional apps or services; instead its activated and ready out of the box.
To ensure it’s activated, launch the Settings app on your device and tap on “Location Services,” followed by “Disable (or Enable) Find Your Phone.” FireOS changes the title of settings based on the current state, meaning if a feature like Find Your Phone is enabled, the setting title would contain “Disable” and vice versa. So technically, if the setting title states “Disable,” you can rest assured the feature is enabled. Changing settings titles is an easy way to confuse customers, in my opinion.
Back to the topic at hand. To track a lost device you’ll need access to a browser, be it a desktop or mobile browser. You’re going to need to visit the URL amazon.com/manageyourkindle and sign into your Amazon account.
Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET
Click on the Devices tab (or select it from the menu if you’re using a mobile browser) and then select your phone. There will be a drop-down menu where you can remotely carry out all sorts of actions on the device, but for right now we’re only concerned with the “Find your Phone” option. Click on it and wait for your device to be found. Once Amazon has located it, you’ll see a map of its current location. Keep in mind, if a would-be thief turns off the device or disables the feature, you’re out of luck.
Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET
After pinpointing your device, you can force it to sound an alarm (especially handy for those times when it’s in a couch cushion), lock it with a new passcode and display a message, or remotely wipe it. All of these options can be carried out from the same menu you used to find the phone in the first place.
Naturally, Amazon’s solution isn’t the only one; there are plenty of apps, such as Lookout Security & Antivirus, available in Amazon’s App Store. With that said, you can use whatever method works best for you, or more than one just to be sure.
