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Is there a solution for supporting "find my phone" from either Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, using the native Android Device Manager? Or does Google even provide a web services API that could be used to develop this?

My Google Home does not (yet) support this, which is a bit surprising, given the integrated Google ecosystem: "Sorry, locate device is not yet supported."

Alexa depends upon a 3rd-party integration, with TrackR and IFTTT seeming to be the most popular ones. TrackR requires an additional app - and initial experience shows it to be a battery hog. The only IFTTT applets I've found rely on calling the phone, which won't help much if it is on silent.

Using the native Android Device Manager support would seem to be the most ideal here - as it wouldn't require any additional software, and can ring the device even if it's set to silent or vibrate.

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Although it's not ideal, you could use two IFTTT recipes to allow you to call your phone: one to set the ringtone volume to maximum, and one to actually call the phone. It's a little more involved than I'd like, but since IFTTT offers no chaining of actions, it's the best you'll get.

Recipe 1: If Amazon Alexa > Say a specific phrase Then Android Device > Set ringtone volume.

You could set the specific phrase to "set my phone volume to maximum", so you simply have to announce "Alexa, set my phone volume to maximum" when you want to do that. Of course, for the Google Home, replace the Alexa trigger with the Google Home trigger.

Recipe 2: If Amazon Alexa > Say a specific phrase Then Phone Call > Call my phone.

As you'd expect, this will call your phone, hopefully making quite a loud noise now the volume is set to maximum. IFTTT only support US phone numbers at the minute though; if you're in another country, you may have to use a different method (maybe a notification or email).

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  • Using IFTTT's Android Device support to set the ringtone volume is a good suggestion - but still requires an additional device app, and doesn't make use of any integration with Android Device Manager (which would otherwise be ideal, if even possible). At least in some cases (if we knew the ringtone volume was set, or tried calling first without), we could skip straight to Recipe 2 and (initially) bypass Recipe 1. Will leave this open for a bit yet and see what other options may come forward... Thanks!
    – ziesemer
    Feb 8, 2017 at 17:30
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    @ziesemer No problem. I did a little research into the Android Device Manager APIs, and it doesn't look like they're open, rather unfortunately. Hopefully someone comes forward with a better answer than mine, though; mine isn't really ideal for your use case.
    – Aurora0001
    Feb 8, 2017 at 17:38

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