Apple doesn’t care how often I wake up my family while searching for my iPhone

Though I review an endless variety of wearables, my daily drivers are products out of Cupertino, and my Apple Watch is pretty much an extension of my body. Meanwhile, keeping track of my iPhone, which is not strapped to my wrist, isn’t always seamless. Rather than waste time blindly looking for my phone in every corner of my home, I almost always ping the phone from my smartwatch instead. It’s obnoxious, but I have no shame. I recently learned that this simple feature has more functionality than I realized, and instead of being excited, I’m annoyed it’s not implemented differently.

If you don’t own a newer Apple Watch, it might be hard to fathom how annoying my pinging habits are to others (and, frankly, to myself). I am the domestic version of a person in a parking lot repeatedly thumbing the panic button to find their car. Every time I use the ping, I am not only blaring a cringe-worthy tone from who knows where (literally, who knows where my phone is?), I am also audibly admitting that I am both forgetful and lazy. I could retrace my steps, but instead, I’d rather play marco polo, and that’s embarrassing.

Despite going through this exercise more than daily, I only recently learned that if you hold the ping button, it will also strobe the flashlight on your paired iPhone. If you already know this, don’t come after me; just pat yourself on the back. “What a game changer,” thought I. Finally, a way to find my phone without my partner hearing the tone that has become the calling card of my irresponsibility. Wrong. Apple failed to build in an option that silently sets off the mini rave lighting — you can only ping or ping and flash, but not just flash.

I find this oversight especially annoying in the evening hours. The amount of time I spend as the only conscious member of my household is staggering. If I were a caped crusader fighting crime, it’d be one thing, but I’m typically fighting insomnia, not crime, and my activity never includes changing out of my slippers. Whether I’m feeding a child, using the bathroom, or sneaking to the pantry, I usually have my phone in tow for lighting and entertainment.

Unfortunately, I often carry my phone to alt locations and then forget it for the return trip. I crawl back into bed, and just as I settle in, I realize what I’ve done and wonder where my much-needed alarm is now going to go off. In the kitchen, where I was just inhaling trail mix like a rabid trash panda? On the glider where I just watched 20 minutes worth of TikTok?

At 2:00 AM, when your child has finally, finally fallen back asleep after a night feed, the last thing you want to do is send a ping into the void. The option to initiate a flashing light sans alert tone would let me search for my phone in silence, hiding my shame and saving my family’s Zs.

The only workaround I’ve found so far is to use the Apple Watch’s camera control options. If the lighting is right I can use the photo preview on my watch to figure out where my phone is lodged. This basically includes playing “I Spy” and determining the angle of the camera based on the photo. If it’s too dark, I take a photo with the flash enabled and, as they say, follow the light. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this method’s byproduct: a collection of very artistic photos of my ceiling, floor, and couch cushions. Obviously, the best solution would be to keep track of my phone, but I’ve long resigned myself to losing that battle.