You know when your phone is somewhere in the house, but you don’t know where? That’s where “Find my phone” capability comes in handy. Just ask a nearby family member or friend to use the feature built into their phone’s OS to ping the lost device, and it makes a loud noise that helps you find it.
The problem: Not everyone uses the same phone operating system. In my house, I have an iPhone, and my wife has an Android. This means when I inevitably leave my phone in a hotel couch, she can’t really help me find it. Sure, she could call my phone number, but I usually have my ringer off and Do Not Disturb enabled. (I’m annoying like that.) She obviously can’t use Apple’s Find My iPhone, which doesn’t run on her Android device. And while both Apple and Google offer tools to see the location of paired devices from a computer, the computer that’s nearby may not be set up with the proper permissions.
Am I doomed to keep track of where my phone is, like a functional adult? No, thanks to a simple app called RingIt by Belgian developer Gaëtan Van Den Berge. This application, which is free for both Android and iOS, exists to make it easier for Android users to help iPhone users find their phone, and vice versa. Just open the app, hit a button, and the other person’s phone will ring—loudly—helping them to find their phone.
“The idea for RingIt actually came to me on vacation with my girlfriend,” Van Den Berge tells me. “I kept misplacing my phone, often while it was on silent, and I’d repeatedly ask her, ‘Do you know where my phone is?’ I remember thinking how nice it would be if she could just make my phone ring loudly from her own device, even if mine was muted.”
And so he made an application that does exactly this, and nothing else. The application doesn’t collect location or any user data—just email addresses that are used for verification.
Setting up the application is easy: Just install the app on your phone. You’ll need to verify your email address, which is done by typing in a code sent to your inbox. After that you’ll have to grant a few permissions—basically, the app needs to be able to send notifications even when settings like Do Not Disturb are turned on. Make sure you provide this permission; the application won’t work without it.
