Just upgraded my N5 to Lollipop and was thinking of setting up Smart Lock from when I’m at home and at my desk at work using NFC tags. I use a four number PIN to unlock my phone, which is getting a little tiresome.
Is this even possible? Not sure what the range of a tag is – would I have to place the phone on it or would it be enough if I put a few tags around the house? Also how to I go about programming the tags to unlock – can I use the phone for this?
Thanks
You need to tap the back of the phone with it, and then you still need to swipe the screen to unlock it, you set it up by going to settings>security>smart lock>trusted devices
Thanks for clarifying. Didn't realise that I have to tap a NFC tag, so that won't be suitable for my purposes. Smart (Un)lock with a Bluetooth device should work though, and easily cover my flat. I could buy something small and cheap that I can always leave plugged in, acting as my personal unlock device - any ideas? Probably won't even be using it, perhaps a pair of Bluetooth speakers?
As for having to swipe to unlock - that's perfect and exactly what I'm looking for. Just want to avoid entering a PIN when at home/work
I'm using my smart watch as a trusted device and then, no need to unlock, just swipe up.
You could use something like this ring if you like wearing rings.
http://www.amazon.com/Titanium-avai...9&sr=8-1&keywords=nfc+ring&pebp=1416329643681
I've noticed that with a smart device setup (have the Bluetooth in my car setup) that while the device is connected it does not go to sleep. I would expect some pretty nasty battery drain if you're always connected to a device. My phone battery lasts the day with pretty moderate use with 15-25% left. If I kick it up a notch then it seems not last the whole day, or at least need charging at the end of the day.
I wonder if people see the battery drain with the smart devices connected all the time...
patmann03 said:
You could use something like this ring if you like wearing rings.
http://www.amazon.com/Titanium-avai...9&sr=8-1&keywords=nfc+ring&pebp=1416329643681..
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These are crap, you have to fiddle a LOT to get the phone to "see" it.
chuotdx said:
I'm using my smart watch as a trusted device and then, no need to unlock, just swipe up.
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Click to collapse
This would indeed be the easiest solution to the “problem”, but I'm just not into smart watches… seems like yet another device I have to check and I want a watch that lasts for years on one charge. Speaking of smart watches, one of my colleagues was just handed the developer edition of the Razer Nabu at a conference – that’s definitely something I’d consider getting for my better half who walks a lot at work. I has some interesting functions apart from the usual step meter.
patmann03 said:
You could use something like this ring if you like wearing rings.
http://www.amazon.com/Titanium-avai...9&sr=8-1&keywords=nfc+ring&pebp=1416329643681
I've noticed that with a smart device setup (have the Bluetooth in my car setup) that while the device is connected it does not go to sleep. I would expect some pretty nasty battery drain if you're always connected to a device. My phone battery lasts the day with pretty moderate use with 15-25% left. If I kick it up a notch then it seems not last the whole day, or at least need charging at the end of the day.
I wonder if people see the battery drain with the smart devices connected all the time...
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestion, but rings just aren't my cup of tea. Maybe a cheap BT speaker such as http://ebay.to/1tdepnM would work? I could leave it plugged in at all times in a hidden spot and just never use it.
Regarding the device never going to sleep - that must surely be a bug? Or the worst design decision for a while. Have you tried other BT devices?
With the 6.5 version och Google Play Services trusted places can be used.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/1...usted-places-feature-to-lollipops-smart-lock/
ea_umea said:
With the 6.5 version och Google Play Services trusted places can be used.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/1...usted-places-feature-to-lollipops-smart-lock/
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Fantastic, thanks! I'll give this a spin right away
Edit: works like a charm here at work. Got the smart lock message upon the first unlock, subsequent unlocks are just a swipe away
I was so excited to finally have a use for my NFC tags when I heard about the Smart Unlock feature.
First thing I did was put a NFC sticker on my vehicle dock and added it as a trusted device. Sure enough, the phone doesn't ask me for an unlock pattern; great! HOWEVER, there is just one little problem.... After unlocking, I'm presented with the "New tag found" full-screen message which you have to manually close EVERY SINGLE TIME!
What's the story here? I've done some digging, and there's even an Xposed module to disable this message. This simply cannot be the way that Google intended for this feature to work.... Any ideas?
StNickZA said:
I was so excited to finally have a use for my NFC tags when I heard about the Smart Unlock feature.
First thing I did was put a NFC sticker on my vehicle dock and added it as a trusted device. Sure enough, the phone doesn't ask me for an unlock pattern; great! HOWEVER, there is just one little problem.... After unlocking, I'm presented with the "New tag found" full-screen message which you have to manually close EVERY SINGLE TIME!
What's the story here? I've done some digging, and there's even an Xposed module to disable this message. This simply cannot be the way that Google intended for this feature to work.... Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found a fix for that, give me a min to find it again
I can't find it again.............I do know that it used 2 apps, and one was a sort of tasker app that you told it to do nothing
idbl_fanatic said:
I found a fix for that, give me a min to find it again
I can't find it again.............I do know that it used 2 apps, and one was a sort of tasker app that you told it to do nothing
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Click to collapse
Thanks all the same, but I still think that there has to be a simpler answer here. Using a third-party application (or two!) to mask the problem cannot be what Google intended.
Google intended for NFC to be used to transfer between devices... The tags are more of a third-party support. Download Trigger, and all you have to do is register the tag. You can even set it up to do things like launch your media player, activate Bluetooth, turn up your volume, etc.
I used an expired transport card which has an NFC chip. Stuck it on the car cradle and works just fine. No need to click away any message after the initial pairing
Chris Hansen said:
Google intended for NFC to be used to transfer between devices... The tags are more of a third-party support. Download Trigger, and all you have to do is register the tag. You can even set it up to do things like launch your media player, activate Bluetooth, turn up your volume, etc.
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That may be what was originally intended, but Google has since added other features that are built in. For example, you can write a WiFi access point to a tag and it will now connect automatically WITHOUT the need for third party apps like Trigger. I still don't believe that a third party app should be required for smart unlock to work as intended.
I'm starting to think that perhaps it is the type of tag I'm using, or perhaps there is a "null" record that can be written to a tag which will prevent the built in reader from popping up.
StNickZA said:
That may be what was originally intended, but Google has since added other features that are built in. For example, you can write a WiFi access point to a tag and it will now connect automatically WITHOUT the need for third party apps like Trigger. I still don't believe that a third party app should be required for smart unlock to work as intended.
I'm starting to think that perhaps it is the type of tag I'm using, or perhaps there is a "null" record that can be written to a tag which will prevent the built in reader from popping up.
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Click to collapse
I'm not sure why you're so against the app, but regardless, you should try it out. Use it just to write to your tag. Uninstall the app afterward. Should still work as you want it to. I have one in my car that I configured with Trigger (when it was still NFC Task Launcher). Haven't had the app installed on the last few phones I've owned, but it still works as intended - turns on my Bluetooth, ups the media volume, and launches Play Music.
As far as your tag, I believe you are correct. I vaguely remember a similar issue some years ago where the tag kept prompting with that empty message.
Chris Hansen said:
I'm not sure why you're so against the app, but regardless, you should try it out. Use it just to write to your tag. Uninstall the app afterward. Should still work as you want it to. I have one in my car that I configured with Trigger (when it was still NFC Task Launcher). Haven't had the app installed on the last few phones I've owned, but it still works as intended - turns on my Bluetooth, ups the media volume, and launches Play Music.
As far as your tag, I believe you are correct. I vaguely remember a similar issue some years ago where the tag kept prompting with that empty message.
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It's not that I am against the app (or any of the others in the Play store)... And you are 100% right, there's a lot of functionality in those apps, and it can certainly solve my issue. It's just that when Google adds a feature like this, they don't *require* you to download an after-market app for it to work. And a full-screen popup whenever you approach an NFC tag set as a "trusted device" literally BREAKS the feature in my opinion. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of it and find out what I'm doing wrong.
StNickZA said:
What's the story here? I've done some digging, and there's even an Xposed module to disable this message. This simply cannot be the way that Google intended for this feature to work.... Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have some kind of app installed which performs actions upon touching an NFC tag (eg trigger)? I had the same messages pop up every-time, but once I installed an app and related a "display on" action to it, the messages stopped. If you don't want the tag to do anything just let it do something trivial, like enabling mobile data (which is probably enabled already anyway when you're driving). I hope this works for you.
StNickZA said:
After unlocking, I'm presented with the "New tag found" full-screen message which you have to manually close EVERY SINGLE TIME!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Freeze Tags.apk with TiBu. Profit.
Nfc Tools
What your phone does when you touch an NFC depends on the URI that is written on the tag. You can easily check that by downloading NFC tools and scanning the tag in question. If the tag is writable and you want nothing to happen when you touch it with you phone, try writing following URI to the tag with NFC Tools: bad://access/development
Hi Guys,
I've been having a real hard time with this phone, I am sitting on the MIUI 10 stable global rom at the moment and I was wondering if you guys turn off MIUI optimization at all (in the developer settings) I'm not entirely sure what it does, but toggling it wipes out alot of permissions.
I've got 2 big issues with this phone. the Video Chat mic bug (Which I have seemed to get around by using WhatsApp for video chats)
The other being Android Auto not connecting all the time. I was wondering if maybe because this MIUI optimization is like a task killer that keeps killing stuff in the background?
When I need Android Auto to work, all I have to do is toggle USB Debugging and it fires up right away. Very strange, but it works for now.
Side Note for Xiaomi, Why do you need to lock down the phones like this? Android memory management works great, please don't mess with it. I just don't understand why we have these extra layers of security and permissions. It really messes with any third party apps, what an ordeal it is to get notifications working for example on any third part texting app. I have to go into like 3 different areas and then only sometimes it works. Please leave android alone, it works fine the way it is
I just turned them off. I guess we'll see how it goes.
Not sure they were ever there as I just got this phone for Christmas and spent most of the 25th updating Android. It's finally up to 8.0.0 so I started setting it up the way I like it. I went to Smart Lock to set that up but when I open the Smart Lock setting there are no options, just a blank white screen. I did an internet search and all I could find is to reset the phone to get the options to show and some said the options will just disappear after a while and another reset will fix it for a while.
I'm looking for a better solution. Is this an Android 8 thing or did it happen on this phone before the Android 8 upgrade?
Thanks
theandies said:
Not sure they were ever there as I just got this phone for Christmas and spent most of the 25th updating Android. It's finally up to 8.0.0 so I started setting it up the way I like it. I went to Smart Lock to set that up but when I open the Smart Lock setting there are no options, just a blank white screen. I did an internet search and all I could find is to reset the phone to get the options to show and some said the options will just disappear after a while and another reset will fix it for a while.
I'm looking for a better solution. Is this an Android 8 thing or did it happen on this phone before the Android 8 upgrade?
Thanks
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Click to collapse
Go to settings> security> trust agents and turn off smart lock (Moto voice), and smart lock (Google). Then reboot and return to same menu to turn back on smart lock (Google) ( I've never needed Moto voice). This is supposedly a known problem with smart lock on many phones, this "fix" must be done for every (re)boot. Overlays also stop working needing a reboot to fix, which is a bigger process with needing to do this smart lock "fix" also at every (re)boot.
Sent from my Moto Z (2) using XDA Labs
I actually had a few more security updates that installed and after the last one the smart lock options showed up. I set it up the way I like it and so far it's stuck. I haven't rebooted yet so I'll report back as soon as I do. Thanks
Nope, the smart lock settings went away again. I think I'll just wait for PIE to come out and see if that fixes it.
I did do the Trust Agent work around and that does work but it still goes away after a while for some reason but thanks for the tip!
Running lineageOS 17 on a xiaomi mi 9 lite, loving it, but i made a mistake.
I have my phone rooted and have been messing around with edxposed and magisk and i was trying to see if i could enable some sort of face unlock feature through a mod. found one called hidden settings and i started poking around, and i tried to change the value of this one called "lockscreen.options=enable_facelock" through the terminal, hoping it would enable a face recognition header in the settings somewhere, but instead, it had a very strange effect. first, that string no longer exists in android secure settings on my phone, and second, now my phone will not lock through normal means. using the power button, waiting for timeout, nothing, as soon as i wake the screen, the padlock icon is already open and the screen swipes itself up and goes to my unlocked home screen as though it had recognized my face and unlocked itself...only it didn't, because even trying this with my thumb over the camera has the same result.
anyway, i don't know what to do, but i need my phone to lock. so far the only thing ive tried that works is to use the lockdown mode button in my power menu, but that's a hassle. anyway, any help would be appreciated, my goal is to avoid a factory reset as well.
thanks in advance
Sorry, unofficial lineageOS 17 and magisk and edexposed. That is a highly experimental setup. You should be aware, there you have to start from scratch at some point. Be happy, if it's enough to wipe system and data. Others flash stock ROM to fix things.
kurtn said:
Sorry, unofficial lineageOS 17 and magisk and edexposed. That is a highly experimental setup. You should be aware, there you have to start from scratch at some point. Be happy, if it's enough to wipe system and data. Others flash stock ROM to fix things.
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actually it was simpler than I thought...turns out nothing was broken at all. in fact one element was functioning better than i expected it to. a while back i was messing around on my previous phone, a rooted oneplus 5 running resurrection remix, and i started fiddling with tasker...anyway, at some point i had issues with the native smart lock features so i set a profile in tasker to unlock the phone when the screen turns on as long as i am connected to my home wifi network. apparently when i restored all my apps to the new phone through my google account it saved a ghost of that profile...i didn't catch it because it wasn't listed in the tasker interface, so i assumed none of my old automations had transferred. i figured it out when other old profiles started to activate, and eventually i remembered that i hadn't set any of that stuff up on this phone yet :victory::laugh:
in any case, thank you for the input...to be honest i would rather have a less experimental setup, but the mi 9 lite doesn't have much development yet so i'm choosing the best from what is available.
Hi,
I find the Smart Lock (using Trusted Places) to be very buggy..
Sometimes I find that the Smart Lock just stops working when I'm at my desk.. Whatever, so I try and re-enable it, but I'm never able to easily re-enable it. I follow the same process, but the lock screen doesn't have the unlocked padlock. Rebooting the device made it work, and I also got it to "work" by toggling "On-body detection", and then going back to "Trusted places" (or some odd combination of adding a 2nd Trusted Place). It's a bit frustrating..
It's also not clear to me how to enable the "Trusted places" option. For example, the "On-body detection" option has a toggle to enable it. The "Trusted places" screen has no button/toggle. I tap on the big tile/graphic of the "house with the 4 dots linking to the phone", and I believe that's how you kickstart it?
Lastly, in the Trusted Places screen, it has a note at the bottom saying:
"Your device will stay unlocked for up to four hours..."
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Click to collapse
So according to that, it expires at 4 hours? However when I wake up I notice that it's still active..
I have a similar issue were at random the smart lock will just not work and I have to log back into the phone, even finger print option not available. Basically same as if I was to restart the phone. The feature is still enabled so don't need to re enable! I was hoping that getting onto a pixel this garbage will stop happening after experiencing it on my old op6t but as of now the pixel works worse then op.
thisguy159 said:
I have a similar issue were at random the smart lock will just not work and I have to log back into the phone, even finger print option not available. Basically same as if I was to restart the phone. The feature is still enabled so don't need to re enable! I was hoping that getting onto a pixel this garbage will stop happening after experiencing it on my old op6t but as of now the pixel works worse then op.
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Click to collapse
Ah interesting, so you are experiencing similar issues too..
I wonder if it has something to do with the phone temporarily losing it's current location, and thus forcing a lock on the phone? Not sure..
oksureman said:
Ah interesting, so you are experiencing similar issues too..
I wonder if it has something to do with the phone temporarily losing it's current location, and thus forcing a lock on the phone? Not sure..
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Click to collapse
You would think but I have my watch connected to it as well both wearos or fitbit sense and same issue with smart lock, so not just location limited.
Noticed the same problem here. My old device I just used the rear finger print scanner, it was instant on and in, with the Pixel 6 Pro the finger print reader is neither in the best place or the quickest, and if you are in a dark place and don't aim properly, its a blinding light! So I thought at least at home I can use smark unlock. Worked fine yesterday, today it wouldn't stay unlocked. All settings appeared okay, my address was shown as a trusted place, I loaded maps so it get my location (it was already showing me at home anyway), but just not working.
I then removed my trusted place, readded, exactly the same address from the pinpoint on the map was shown, and it is working again.
I took the 4 hours to mean that after 4 hours you would need to sign in again once, then you get another 4 hours of smart unlock.
Just a buggy piece of Google software I guess.
Honestly I don't think I've ever had Smart Lock that really worked on ANY of my android phone. It works when it wants to.
Smart Lock has been janky since original pixel and the nexii before that.