Alexa has a smart feature that can help you find something you’ve lost

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Both Google and Apple have integrated search tools into their ecosystems: Find Hub for Android and Find My devices for iOS. They allow you to track everything from a smartphone to a wearable, like a smart watch and a small GPS beacon. But wouldn’t you know, Amazon also offers a similar feature through Alexa called – you guessed it – Find My. Rather than looking at devices and gadgets pinned on a map, you can simply ask Alexa via voice commands to find them. You can use it to search for keys and Bluetooth devices like Tile trackers and Amazon Echo Buds.

You can even write down and later rediscover the items you have placed in your home, especially non-electronic items. For example, you can tell Alexa that you leave your sunglasses on the kitchen table. When you want to remember where they are, or when you’re frantically searching because you forgot, you can ask “Alexa, where did I put my sunglasses?” That will tell you. This works much like some of the newer features added as part of the Alexa+ upgrade available to Prime members.

Although you don’t need Prime or Alexa+ to use location tracking. As with other devices supported by Alexa’s Find My feature, you need to enable location tracking, according to Amazon. Echo Buds, Tile, and Amazon Find My compatible devices all need to be activated first. Once you do, you can ask Alexa to locate these devices, some of which can even sound an alert or alarm to help you pinpoint their precise location.

Location features work well inside your home or around your property, but what about outside your home? What happens if you leave something behind and want to follow it? There is a way, but all the devices you want to track must support Amazon’s Find My service, so not everything will be compatible. For your phone, you can install and use a skill like Find My Phone from Matchbox.io. The key to finding other lost items away from home is a unique feature called Amazon Sidewalk.

This is a shared network, created by Amazon devices, that allows authorized and nearby Amazon Echo devices to connect and use the localized network. The Tile network, used by Tile trackers, works in a similar way. Ring uses something similar for neighborhood pet monitoring. When your Echo or compatible devices are in range, they can use the wider network and track lost items through Amazon Sidewalk even if they go beyond your property. Granted, they need to be within range of a Sidewalk-ready device that’s also streaming.

Your Echo devices probably also use it to connect to your neighbor’s smart home gadgets. Amazon says that when a Tile tracker is near an “Echo Sidewalk Bridge,” Alexa can let you know when it was last seen there. It can do the same thing with available sidewalk bridges in your neighborhood, so you can ask Alexa to track other compatible gadgets outside your home. Although other users will need to enable the community search features for their Echo devices through the Alexa app for everything to work properly.