Tag: Smart Lock

August, the company behind some of the best smart locks on the market, have announced a deeper, more direct integration with Google Assistant.  Now owners of the smart locks will be able to directly interact with them from Assistant.

To be clear, August has worked with Google Assistant for about a year ago and to access your locks, you had to say, “Hey Google, talk to August”.  Now you can simply say, “Hey Google, is the front door locked?” and Assistant will interact with your August lock directly to determine if it is locked or not.

One of the great features of Chrome OS is one that few people actually use.  It’s called Smart Lock and while technically still a beta feature in the Stable channel of Chrome, it is a quick and easy way to unlock your Chromebook using your Android phone.  No longer do you have to type in your password on your Chromebook but rather, can simply walk into the room with your unlocked Android phone or click your account photo on your Chromebook to unlock it.  Setting it up is pretty easy and it can save you some time, especially if you have your phone setup as a Trusted Agent.

First, what is Smart Lock?  As the name suggests, it is a way to quickly and easily unlock your Chrome OS device by using your Android phone.  To do this, your phone and your Chromebook have to be linked and trusted with each other which is a quick five minute process.  It is a feature that has been in the Settings of Chrome OS since last year and requires that your phone be within 100 feet of your Chromebook to work.  In this How To, I’ll show you how to set it up and use it.