SkieCan I find my child's phone if it is switched off or has no data?
Not live. A device that is off or offline cannot report, so the Skie dashboard shows its last known position and the time it was seen. When it reconnects, it reports straight away. Lost mode applies as soon as the device is online again.
This is the awkward truth about any tracking. A phone can only tell you where it is when it is on and connected. Skie is no different. If the battery is flat or someone has switched the phone off, nothing new will arrive.
What you do have is the last place the device was seen, with its time, and the recent trail that led there. In many cases that is enough to start. The phone was last seen near the bus stop at four, or at a friend's house, and you begin there.
Switch on lost mode anyway. The command waits and is applied the moment the device is back online. At that point the device locks, shows your message and starts reporting its position again. The same goes for mark found when you get it back.
Meanwhile the dashboard marks a device that has gone quiet as overdue or offline, and a missing check-in counts as an alert. Airplane mode and mobile network settings are locked by policy, so a child cannot simply turn the connection off from settings, but power cannot be controlled.
Tip: ask your carrier to block the SIM if the phone has one, and note the IMEI from the lost mode view for the police. If the phone is a Wi-Fi-only tablet, it reports only when it finds Wi-Fi it has been given.