So I live in an area where phone theft is common. So having S23 Ultra, I just wanted to know what all settings I can do that can help me recover the phone after being stolen. If not getting the phone back, atleast make sure that my data, bank apps etc stay safe. I have these so far :

  1. Did the setting where you can’t turn off wifi, mobile data, location etc from lock screen without entering PIN.
  2. Can’t switch off without PIN. However I observed that long pressing the power and volume key combination for 15 sec can still switch it off without PIN. So this setting is basically useless?
  3. Offline finding and other Find My Mobile settings enabled

What else can I do?

A setting that I thought would be present but it’s not, which is there in all chinese phones - Automatic/Scheduled Power On/Off. I could set auto power on at let’s say 3 am, so even if the thief switches it off and sleeps for the night, it could turn on and I could track it. Assuming the theif is little dumb, lol.

There’s an app that has very good anti-theft features but it seems people here do not trust it because the developers changed lifetime subscription to yearly subscription even for those who had taken for lifetime. Also play Store flags it as harmful app because of all the permissions it needs, full version only on its site. It’s called Cerberus. If you could suggest to have any of these features that can be done without this app :

  1. It can do fake shutdown animation when power off is triggered from lock screen. Makes the keys and screen unusable for 30 sec or any time as if it’s off but actually it is on.
  2. Can take camera snapshot and send mail when entered wrong PIN more than n times or tried power off attempt. It can also send phone details like network, wifi, location etc on the mail in all such cases and also when phone is turn on/off.
  3. It can also run any Tasker actions on those triggers
  4. Can remotely trigger camera snapshot, display any message on lock screen, ring an alarm, and all the things Google find my device can do, using their own website or via SMS also.

There are many other features that all works so well, but people don’t recommend to use this app.

I just wish Phones should have this whole app built natively. Generally theives are not that smart and tech savy to overcome these.