Changes not quick locked up yet
Earlier this year, we reported on a planned split in Android’s Smart Lock scheme which allows host devices such as phones and tablets to be kept unlocked while connected to a recognized Bluetooth device. Now, we’re starting to see the follow-through on that charter as users are reporting sight of the newly-termed Extend Unlock in their devices’ system settings.
Freelance Android journalist Mishaal Rahman has picked up on a Google Issue Tracker thread where the submitting user noted that when they opened up the new Extend Unlock item in the Security and Privacy Hub of their settings, a blank page was generated.
In another tweet, he reproduces screenshots of the menu sent to him by other users.
As a refresher, the Smart Lock split in the works divides Bluetooth devices into two classes: wearables would use Watch Unlock while other devices would use Extend Unlock. The latter would basically operate much as Smart Lock does now while Watch Unlock utilizes a new Active Unlock API to allow Wear OS devices to control the lock state of a host device running Android 13 or later.
It’s not exactly clear what the state of Watch Unlock is right now, but as far as we’ve seen with Smart Lock becoming Extend Unlock, we may be in for an unstable period for the time being. Rahman suggests that Google may not have released all the server-side flags required to display those related options, but all of this means we’re still hurrying up to wait.
