Microsoft and Dell are doing great with your Phone and Dell Mobile Connect apps in the Windows ecosystem. Taking a leaf from the same book, Google is also developing Phone Hub for Chromebooks, which will act as a deeply integrated bridge between an Android smartphone and a Chromebook. This effort is to streamline the smartphone-desktop experience on Chromebooks. Basically, from now on, you won’t need Pushbullet or its alternatives to manage your smartphone on a Chromebook. On that note, let’s now learn how to enable Phone Hub on Chromebooks.
Enable Phone Hub on Chromebooks Now (2021)
Before we get started, let me make it clear that you don’t have to switch to the Beta or Dev channel to get a taste of Phone Hub on a Chromebook. Just make sure you’re last. Chrome OS 89 (or higher) stable channel and you are good to go. Other than that, you need an Android smartphone to use Phone Hub. iOS compatibility is not yet on the roadmap. Finally, you need to sign in with the same Google account on both your smartphone and Chromebook.
1. First of all, open Chrome and type chrome://flags
into the address bar and press enter. It will open the Chrome Flags page on your Chromebook.
2. Now, search for “phone center” and enable the flag from the drop-down menu. You can also paste chrome://flags/#enable-phone-hub
into the address bar and press enter to open the Phone Center flags page directly.
3. After activating, “Restart” in the lower right corner.
4. After your Chromebook restarts, you will find a smartphone icon on the Chrome OS shelf just to the left of the Quick Settings panel. Open it andTo start“.
5. Finally, you will be taken to the setup page where you can add your Android device to sync with the Chromebook. As you can see, you will receive smartphone notifications on your Chromebook and you will be able to do things like enable hotspot, install apps remotely, find your phone. simply choose your device Click “Accept and Continue” from the drop-down menu.
6. That’s it. now you will find all your smartphone stuff Under this menu, you can manage almost everything on your smartphone directly from the Chromebook.
7. If you have already set up a smartphone, you will find the option to enable Phone Center on your Chromebook under Settings -> Connected Devices -> Your Android Smartphone -> Enable Phone Center toggle.
8. If the above steps didn’t work, I recommend this: disconnect existing smartphone from your Chromebook. After that, enable the flag and start over.
9. Finally, you can try updating your Android smartphone’s Google Play Services to the beta version. You can install Play Services Information (Free) app to open Play Services page in Play Store. Later on, join the beta program and update the app. Now enable Phone Center Flag on your Chromebook and check if it works. If the beta program is full, you can download the APK from: here.
Get Smartphone Notifications with Phone Hub on Chromebook
This is how you can enable Phone Center on Chromebooks, no matter what channel you’re currently registered with. As I mentioned above I am on Chrome OS 89 stable channel and Phone Hub still works for me. It looks like Google has expanded its A/B testing to more users and that’s really good.
So I urge you to go ahead and try your luck. Anyway, that’s it for us. For more Chrome OS tips and tricks like enabling Trash (Recycle Bin) on Chromebook, follow our linked article. And if you run into any issues, comment below and let us know.