Apple’s iOS 14.5 is out, and with it comes the ability for your Apple Watch to unlock your Face ID protected phone if you’re wearing a mask. This will make it much easier to get through your day without having to enter your password every time you need to use your phone (because Face ID cannot recognize you while wearing this mask). As long as your phone and watch are nearby, you’ll be able to unlock your iPhone by simply turning on the screen.
Once you’re officially running iOS 14.5 (and watchOS 7.4), enabling the feature that lets you unlock your iPhone with your watch is easy.
- Go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode and go to Unlock with the new Apple Watch.
- Toggle the feature on. (There is nothing you need to do on the watch.)
Now that you have it installed, here’s what you’ve been waiting for. The first and most important point to note is that your phone your masked face looking a face with mask. With this feature turned on, my wife was able to unlock my phone without a problem if I was within three feet of her while wearing a mask. In fact, when you turn on the feature, Apple warns you about it.
Apple’s takedown of this is when your Apple Watch is used to unlock your phone, the watch will alert you and a notification that your phone has been unlocked and a button to lock it. Pressing this lock button immediately locks your phone and requires a password the next time it unlocks.
By removing this warning, I’ve had great success with this feature so far. I tried with various masks and they all worked for me. It’s worth mentioning again that the phone is looking for a masked face, so this feature won’t help you if your phone is lying on the table and you’re trying to unlock it – because the Face ID camera can’t see you.
Still, I find that not having to enter my password every time I want to check my shopping list while shopping is a huge bonus and worth what I think is a relatively minor security trade-off. This feature may not be for those with super-secret information on their phone, but it will be a nice quality-of-life improvement for everyone else.
