Financial loss aside, losing your smartphone means losing your personal data. If it gets into the wrong hands, it can be a nightmare. Google is aware of this problem and has included a theft protection feature on Android. While handy, it can be difficult to track down a looted or stolen phone if it’s turned off immediately. However, it seems that you could find the OnePlus 13 with a tracking off characteristic.

You can find a stolen or lost OnePlus 13 with tracking turned off

If you don’t know, you can already track down a Google Pixel 8 and Google Pixel 8 powered off Pixel 9 (review) phones in case of theft. To catch you up, the Open Beta of OxygenOS 15 for OnePlus 12, which was released last month, included a new tab in the stop menu. The label suggested that users can track their phone off.

However, the tag was missing in the Android 15 stable build for the OnePlus 12 that was released this week. Now, we might have the real reason behind it, all thanks to popular Android reporter Mishaal Rahman.

In his recent report for Android AuthorityRahman mentioned that OnePlus informed that the OnePlus 12 does not have the necessary hardware to support this specific feature. Not the case with OnePlus 13 as it runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC with Qualcomm’s Fast Connect 7900 connectivity system.

However, it’s up to OnePlus now if they want to add this feature

A Qualcomm spokesperson told Rahman that the FastConnect 7900 supports tracking off. So it is possible to find a stolen or lost OnePlus 13 even when it is turned off. The OnePlus 13 recently went official in China a few days ago. But, it has not reached the global markets yet.

So it will be interesting to see if OnePlus opt to include this feature. For those curious, when a phone goes off, this software feature uses the Bluetooth controller to send pre-calculated location beacons to nearby devices. It then transmits the phone’s location to the Find My Device service, allowing you to locate the shutdown device. Moreover, this feature is equally useful for finding a device with no battery.