{"id":299229,"date":"2026-02-24T05:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T05:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/299229\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T05:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T05:14:14","slug":"galaxy-s26-series-could-repeat-history-by-missing-a-crucial-security-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/299229\/","title":{"rendered":"Galaxy S26 series could repeat history by missing a crucial security feature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_Gh\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"googles find hub 2\"  alt=\"googles find hub 2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/googles-find-hub-2.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Andy Walker \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<p>Logs posted by a Google employee confirm the Galaxy S26 Ultra does not support powered-off tracking via Google\u2019s Find Hub.<br \/>\nGoogle\u2019s Find My Device network can locate powered-off phones, but only Pixel devices have supported the feature so far.<br \/>\nSamsung\u2019s SmartThings Find works offline, but still requires the phone to be powered on.<\/p>\n<p>Despite Android\u2019s upgraded Find My Device network (now called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-device-manager-find-my-device-789869\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Find Hub<\/a>) rolling out more than a year ago, Samsung\u2019s new flagship phones may still miss out on one of its most useful features.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/andauth.co\/AAGooglePreferredSource\" class=\"e_2m\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img class=\"e_Gh\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766572210_733_google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x.png\"\/><img class=\"e_Gh\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766572211_278_google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve spotted a revealing log entry straight from the Galaxy S26 Ultra on <a href=\"https:\/\/issuetracker.google.com\/issues\/477164707\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Google\u2019s Issue Tracker<\/a>. A Google employee posted the phone\u2019s logs for a separate issue with fonts, but they reveal an important detail:<\/p>\n<p>[ro.bluetooth.finder.supported]: [false]<\/p>\n<p>That single line in the logs indicates that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/samsung-galaxy-s26-ultra-clean-renders-leak-3640352\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Galaxy S26 Ultra<\/a> does not support Bluetooth-based finding when the phone is powered off, a capability Google has supported on Pixel phones since the Pixel 8 series.<\/p>\n<p>Google\u2019s Find My Device network, now branded as Find Hub, uses Bluetooth and proximity data from nearby Android devices to help locate a phone for several hours after it\u2019s powered off. To enable this, Bluetooth and Location must be turned on before the phone shuts down. However, support for the feature remains limited, and for now, it\u2019s only known to be available on Pixel phones starting with the Pixel 8 series.<\/p>\n<p>We were hoping Samsung would finally support the feature on the Galaxy S26 series, but it doesn\u2019t look likely. For what it\u2019s worth, the Galaxy S25 series also lacked support for powered-off tracking through Google\u2019s network.<\/p>\n<p>Samsung does offer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/how-to-find-lost-samsung-galaxy-phone-3302414\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SmartThings Find,<\/a> which includes an \u201coffline\u201d finding feature, but it\u2019s often misunderstood. \u201cOffline\u201d here doesn\u2019t mean the phone is powered off. It simply means the device can be found without mobile data or Wi-Fi, as long as the phone is still powered on and you\u2019re logged into your Samsung account.<\/p>\n<p>Nearby Galaxy devices then act as \u201cFind Nodes,\u201d reporting the phone\u2019s location back to Samsung\u2019s servers. Once the phone is truly powered off, that system stops working.<\/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":"Andy Walker \/ Android Authority TL;DR Logs posted by a Google employee confirm the Galaxy S26 Ultra does&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[120167,367,342,111,139,69,869,6703,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-299229","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-find-hub","9":"tag-google","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-samsung","15":"tag-samsung-galaxy-s26","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}