When you're offline (no Wi-Fi or mobile data) you have no access to facilities that may help find a lost phone. So better not to lose it in the first place! Offline Buddy is intended for two people who are out and about together. It keeps your phone connected to your partner's and warns you if they become separated.
It’s best understood in the following scenario...
You’re visiting a foreign country with your partner and you have no cellphone connection, no data roaming for your phone. You’re relying on Wi-Fi for connection in hotels and eating places, which is good enough most of the time. But when out and about, you have no phone connection, no connection to the Internet. You are offline. But that’s mostly OK, if you need a map, for example, there are many offline map options.
You’re wandering around the city when your partner suddenly realizes they can’t find their phone. Panic! They must have put it down somewhere, in a shop maybe. You retrace your steps and call into the places you’ve just been, but eventually you have to admit it – it’s lost.
There are many facilities to find your phone, but they all rely on tracking your cellphone or Wi-Fi connection, and of course the missing phone is offline, and so it is not tracked and not trackable.
Enter Offline Buddy, which was conceived from this real life situation.
With Buddy installed on both your phones, rerun the above scenario. You exit a shop and the Buddy alarm on your phone goes off. “Where’s your phone?” you ask your partner. “Oh ****, I left it on the counter when I paid”, and back they go to retrieve the phone. Disaster averted!
Buddy on each phone is connected together via Bluetooth, which is independent of any Wi-Fi and cellphone connection. It has a short range of perhaps 10 meters or so. If you and your partner (or more correctly, your phones) separate beyond the Bluetooth range, the connection breaks and your Buddy sounds the alarm.
Buddy is a peer app, that is, the Buddy on both devices acts in the same way. There is no concept of primary or secondary Buddy, they are equals. If you stray outside Bluetooth range, the alarm sounds on both. When you get back in range again, both phones “ping” to let you know you are back in contact. Only you know if the alarm is important. If it goes off and your partner is standing beside you, you know there’s a problem!
If you know that you are going to separate for a short while, perhaps to different shops, you can tap the “Apart” button which will suppress the alarm for a preset time. Whenever you get back in range again, Buddy “pings” to let you know your phones are together again.
Let’s assume it’s your partner’s phone that’s been “lost” and the alert sounds on your phone (of course the situation would be exactly the same if the other way around). The alert alarm has also gone off on your partner’s phone - wherever it is. As explained, both Buddies are equivalent; when their connection is broken, there is no way for them to know which may be the “lost” one.
The alarm sounding on a lost phone could be a concern. There is the possibility of this drawing unwanted attention; if it’s in a shop it may be a good thing that a shop assistant is made aware of it so they can put it to one side. On the other hand, if it’s somewhere in public, it may draw the attention of someone less honest. The alarm will stop after a time - you can set how long this should be - and it’s a trade-off between too short so you may miss it, and too long so that it may draw unwanted attention.
If the alarm is not muted manually, Buddy will assume this is the “lost” one and the phone will lock if you have set the lock option. Again, to remind you, out of contact with each other the Buddies will behave in the same way and both will lock under these circumstances (depending on their individual preference settings).
The app has a simple interface with a main screen and a few option screens.
The main screen shows information about your buddy, and the state of your connection. There are buttons:
Apart – if you’re going to be temporarily apart from your buddy, you can suppress the alert alarm by tapping this. The ‘apart’ time can be set in the settings, the default is 5 minutes
Cancel apart – Tap this if you’re back together earlier and want to be back in ‘alert’ mode. Otherwise it will happen automatically when the timer expires.
Mute alarm – turns off the alert alarm. This also stops the phone from locking. If you don’t mute the alarm when it sounds, the device will lock when the lock delay expires.
You use the configure screen to select your buddy device. If the device you want isn’t shown, you will need to pair it with your phone by using the ‘Connected Devices’ page in the Android settings.
The settings screen lets you set app preferences.
Offline Buddy needs certain Android permissions to operate. These will be requested the first time Buddy starts. See the privacy policy for details.
In order to lock the device, the app needs special Device Administrator permission, which will be requested only if the lock option is enabled. It is a feature of Android that an app with Devices Administrator permission enabled cannot be uninstalled. If you want to remove Offline Buddy from your phone and the lock option has been enabled, you must disable it first. Alternatively you can use Android Apps settings and turn off the permission there.