How do I physically find a wifi device using a laptop or mobile phone

Something that may work:

Go to the hardware store and buy some brass mesh and build a cone. You'll probably need to layer the mesh, then hold your phone in the middle of the cone. The brass mesh should block all radio signals, so if you get a signal, its coming from the direction of the open area of the cone. In theory, you can use this to home in on the device.

FYI, the brass mesh is one component in building a SCIF.

You can always use a Network Monitoring Software Tool like MoocherHunter to triagulate the geolocation of your wifi enabled device.

Actually the mentioned tool is used to triangulate the wifi moochers, but can do the trick for you,given that,the android device is conected to your LAN.

Your router's administrative console can help you find out more about your wireless network activity.It should provide a list of IP addresses, MAC addresses, and device names that it is connected to.with the help of these details this tool will help you locate the device down within 2 meters.(as per developers)

MoocherHunter has been used for law enforcement organizations in Asia to track Wi-Fi moochers.

The software description says it can geo-locate the wireless hacker from the traffic they send across the network, down to 2 meters accuracy. The software doesn't run as an executable in Windows,rather it needs to be burned to a CD, then used to boot the computer. The idea is, with your laptop (and the directional antenna on your wireless card), you'd walk around to triangulate the physical location of the Wi-Fi moocher.

you can find more about MoocherHunter via this link

this way you can locate the device with your laptop

Some wifi routers have a signal strength measurement on them. I know DD-WRT has this. If yours does, then you can do something like this:

• Get a long Ethernet cord
• Plug one end into the router and one into your cable modem/internet connection etc
• Move the router around your apartment and see where you get the strongest signal

Keep in mind, water pipes/metal studs etc can all distort wifi signals

Another option would be to make your own directional antenna, kind of like this.

You could also check out this page for some useful command line linux wifi commands.

One-story flat? You can sort-of triangulate using signal strength alone. You have to assume that signal strength is proportional to distance from the transmitter, which isn't very accurate, but it could be accurate enough to help narrow down the search space.

• Measure signal strength from 3 points in your flat.
• On floor plan of the flat, mark your 3 points, and with a drawing compass, swing an arc across the flat with a radius proportional to the signal strength so that the arcs enclose a fairly small space within the flat.
• If the assumption we made were true (and your measurements and drawing were accurate), your tablet should be within the space between the arcs. It's not quite true but hopefully not too far off either.
• Start your search near that space. Hopefully its location will remind you of where you actually left the tablet. If not, search out from there, possibly repeating the above steps at a shorter distance from this location.

Multi-story flat? Same idea, only now you've got a 3rd dimension. Repeat the above on each floor. With luck, the signal strength will make it obvious which floor it's on. If not, at least you've narrowed your search space to a part of the house, even if you have to look on both (or several) floors in that part.