{"id":498081,"date":"2026-05-22T21:51:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/498081\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T21:51:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T21:51:16","slug":"google-pixel-watch-update-breaks-phone-finding-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/498081\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Pixel Watch update breaks phone finding feature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_mg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"Pixel Watch 4 FishCat Face.\"  alt=\"Pixel Watch 4 FishCat Face\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779486674_62_Pixel-Watch-4-FishCat-Face-scaled.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Kaitlyn Cimino \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Several Google Pixel Watch owners say the Find My Phone\/ring feature stopped working after a recent software update.<\/li>\n<li>Users discovered a temporary workaround: asking Gemini directly on the watch to find the phone still appears to work for many people.<\/li>\n<li>Google has acknowledged the issue on Reddit and says a fix is currently in development for a future update.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One of my favorite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/pixel-watch-4-gps-accuracy-3649940\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pixel Watch<\/a> features is the ability to make my phone ring when it disappears under a blanket or into the couch. It\u2019s a tool you don\u2019t think about much until it suddenly stops working \u2014 and apparently, that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening to a growing number of Pixel Watch owners.<\/p>\n<p>A recent Reddit post from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/PixelWatch\/comments\/1te6iw5\/comment\/on8jre6\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Silent_Polak<\/a> reported that the Find My Phone\/ring feature on their Pixel Watch stopped working after a software update. According to the owner, they\u2019ve been using the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/google-pixel-watch-3-review-3478998\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google Pixel Watch 3<\/a> for nearly a year without any trouble, and the issue only appeared after installing the latest update.<\/p>\n<p>What makes this more concerning is how many people jumped into the thread saying they were relieved they weren\u2019t alone. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/PixelWatch\/comments\/1te6iw5\/comment\/om4s95i\/?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Several users<\/a> claimed the same thing happened to them immediately after updating their watches, while others said they use the option constantly and were frustrated to suddenly lose it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/andauth.co\/AAGooglePreferredSource\" class=\"e_om\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img class=\"e_mg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779486675_632_google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x.png\"\/><img class=\"e_mg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779486676_416_google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That frustration even led some owners to start hunting for temporary fixes. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/PixelWatch\/comments\/1te6iw5\/comment\/omduivg\/?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">One poster in the thread<\/a> shared a workaround that surprisingly seems to help. They explained that the Watch app on their phone had become unusable after the update, opening and immediately crashing every time they tapped it. Restarting both their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/pixel-10-one-month-later-3602628\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google Pixel 10<\/a> and Pixel Watch didn\u2019t solve the problem either.<\/p>\n<p>However, asking Gemini directly on the watch to find their phone apparently still works. Even more interestingly, multiple people replied saying the workaround fixed the issue for them, too. So while the standard shortcut appears broken for some users, Gemini voice commands may still trigger it in the meantime.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is that Google appears to be aware of the situation. Earlier today, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/PixelWatch\/comments\/1te6iw5\/comment\/on8jre6\/?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Pixel Watch team acknowledged the issue<\/a> on Reddit, saying it\u2019s actively working on a fix that will arrive in a future software update. The company also points to the same temporary workaround: using Gemini on the watch to locate their phones until a proper fix rolls out.<\/p>\n<p>The user response makes one thing very clear \u2014 this tool is very important. For many people, the Pixel Watch is the fastest way to find a misplaced phone before turning the entire house upside down. Lately it feels like everything\u2019s been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wear-os-youtube-music-playlist-bug-3666439\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">breaking on the Pixel Watch<\/a>, so we hope that Google\u2019s able to put an end to this annoying trend soon.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-stringify-link=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kaitlyn Cimino \/ Android Authority TL;DR Several Google Pixel Watch owners say the Find My Phone\/ring feature stopped&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[258],"tags":[18,282,823,7210,19,17,82],"class_list":["post-498081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-eire","tag-gadgets","tag-google","tag-google-pixel-watch","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116620446736076699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}