If you use a smartwatch, it’s very likely that, like me, you wear it on your wrist almost all the time. The idea of a smart watch is to help us perform certain tasks and actions without having to use our cell phone (see and respond to notifications, use apps, among others). But this watch can also be used for unlock our smartphoneif we wish.
This is especially useful for those who prefer to use a PIN as a security method on their mobile, or who simply want to unlock it most of the time to even faster access to its functions, but without completely disabling the lock for security reasons. Android hides a way to use a smartwatch as a device to unlock your phone.
A watch (or other device) as a key to unlock your phone
I say it’s hidden because the function is a little buried among the multiple options in the system settings menu. It is Smart lock, a function that allows you to use the devices associated with the mobile as a “key” to keep it unlocked. I do this with my smartwatch, but actually you can even use headphones.
The only condition is that The mobile must remain connected to this device. That is, if you use the earbuds to listen to music and they are connected to your phone, they will remain unlocked until you stop using them. In the case of smart watches, which is the device that we use, it is igual: when the watch is connected, the mobile will be unlocked, in no permanent form: only we can use this method to unlock the mobile for a period of four Hours.
After this period, the mobile will be locked. And of course we can also lock the mobile manually from the power screen. This is a function that can be very useful to avoid constantly unlocking your phone, even if another trusted person will have access to your smartphone.
To set up the watch as a device to keep your phone unlocked, follow these steps:
- We go to the Settings menu then to the Lock screen section (on some devices, this option is in the Security section)
- Next we access the “Extended Unlock” option. The mobile will ask us to enter our security PIN code
- Click on “Trusted devices” then “Add a trusted device”
- Finally, we select the device we are going to use. In this case, the smart watch
The screen will ask us to confirm the action and from there, after unlocking the phone, it will remain unlocked as long as it is connected to our smart watch, as we can see in the previous image (from the notifications screen). The extended unlocking only lasts 4 hours, after this time we will have to unlock the mobile again.
To lock the mobile manually at any time, just hold down the power button and select the “Lock mode” option. If your phone does not have this option enabled by default, you can enable it from the Lock screen section of the settings menu, by navigating to the “Secure lock settings” option.
Finally, and as I mentioned previously, this option may have a different name depending on the customization layer used by the manufacturer of your mobile. In the case of the Samsung Galaxy with One UI, this is called “Extended Unlock” and can be found in the Lock screen section. But to activate this function on mobile phones with an original Android version, you have to go to the Security section of the settings menu, then select “More security configuration settings” and finally go to “Smart lock“.
Cover photo | Alejandro Alcolea for Xataka
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