If you live in a house with divided geek loyalties, your competing devices are about to get a little more cooperative. Smart speakers with Google Assistant can now help you find your lost iPhone; all you need to say is “Hey Google, find my phone” to send a critical alert to your missing iPhone, causing it to ring for 25 seconds or until the notification is dismissed. Critical alerts bypass a device’s notification settings, so your iPhone will ring even if it’s set to silent or in Do Not Disturb mode.

Granted, the smart speaker requirement makes Google Assistant’s Find My Phone feature more restrictive on iOS than it is on Android, allowing Android users to locate their device from any web browser or secondary device tied to their Google account. Fortunately, Apple’s Find My app does essentially the same thing, and you can access it from any other Apple device or via the iCloud website.

Still, it's more convenient to ask your Google Home speaker to ring your iPhone than to navigate through an app or web page yourself to ring your iPhone remotely.

To get started with Google Assistant's Find My Phone feature on iOS, you'll need the Google Home app installed on your iPhone and at least one Google Assistant-enabled smart speaker linked to your account. You'll then need to opt in to notifications and critical alerts from Google Home and set up Google Assistant's Voice Match.