Did you know that you can unlock your Chromebook using an Android phone? Smart Lock, the new feature recently added to both ChromeOS and Android, will unlock a Chromebook as long as both the phone and Chromebook are close to each other and signed into the same account. We will show users how to unlock their Chromebook with an Android phone using Smart Lock.
To use Smart Lock, users will need:
Preparing Jobs for Smart Lock
Most Android 5.0 or higher phones have a scroll-down menu on their home screen that shows a button to turn on Bluetooth. If yours doesn’t, go to your settings and turn it on. This is how it looks on my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. Also, connect to the same local Wi-Fi network that the Chromebook is connected to.
Open Settings on the Chromebook. Do this by clicking on the area in the lower right corner of the screen where you see the clock, battery indicator and possibly your Google account avatar.
Click Settings in the menu that opens in the lower right corner. The ChromeOS settings screen opens.
Scroll down until you see it. Click the link to show the advanced settings. Scroll down to find it (as seen above). Click the button. The operating system will ask you to sign in to your account again and then you will see the following dialog pop up.
Unlock your Android phone and then click on it. The Chromebook will search for your unlocked Android phone and display the phone’s name above the blue button. It changes to the text on the button. Click.
The dialog box changes as shown above. Click on it to see if it works properly. The login screen will appear and you will see that it is calling the phone. When it finds the phone, it will ask you to click the picture. Click it and the phone will give you a notification and the Chromebook will sign in.
Every time you unlock the Chromebook using your Android phone, you will see the above notification on your phone.
When you use Smart Lock, Google will store some information on both devices. Here’s what they store according to the help Page on Google’s site.
Smart Lock for Chromebook automatically turns on Bluetooth for your compatible devices during setup. Google stores Bluetooth MAC addresses for devices with Smart Lock for Chromebook turned on. These are deleted when you turn off Smart Lock for Chromebook.
How to Turn Off Smart Lock
What if you don’t want to unlock your Chromebook with your Android phone? Turn off Smart Lock by going back to Settings. Click again. Scroll down to Smart Lock and click the read button. A dialog box opens and asks you to close it. Click the second button in this dialog. It will shut down and you will probably need to sign in to your Chromebook again.
If you need to lock your Chromebook, you can close the lid or click the Google account avatar in the bottom right and then the lock icon.
