Questions about unlocking a Mac

[MEJHarrison]

I got myself a Series 3 just after Christmas. Loving it so far, but I have two questions about unlocking my laptop/desktop with the watch.

1. My desktop is in the room directly above the living room. So if I'm sitting down there, could someone hop on my Mac upstairs? How far does this feature work? Standard Bluetooth range?

2. While I love unlocking my Mac with my watch, I've noticed that it will unlock it even if I'm not wearing my watch, as long as they're close enough. That seems like a massive security hole to me. Should anyone get access to both my watch and computers, they would have complete access to my Mac. It seems to me that it should only unlock when the watch itself is unlocked. Is this how it's supposed to work or is this just a bug that needs to be fixed?

 

[kissfan]

#2. Is your watch locked when off your wrist? A locked watch will not unlock your Mac.

 

[MEJHarrison]

#2. Is your watch locked when off your wrist? A locked watch will not unlock your Mac.

Thanks for the reply. That made me do more testing and dig deeper and I found the issue. It seems when I enabled the Apple Watch to unlock, it also disabled "Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins". I'd been telling people it's so fast, it's as if I don't even have security turned on. Guess I was closer to the truth than I realized!

Once I re-enabled that feature, it's behaving how I would expect it to behave. If I close the lid and reopen it, I can now see it unlocking with the watch. If I remove the watch, it wants me to enter my password. Perfect!