Nearby Unlock might let you get into your Android phone with your Wear OS watch

Smart Lock -> Smart Unlock -> Nearby Unlock?

Earlier this year, Google showed off one of the features it planned to bring to Wear OS, allowing you to unlock devices like Chromebooks or your Android phone using just your Wear-powered smartwatch, sort of like Chrome OS's Smart Lock. A later teardown indicated the feature might be called Smart Unlock, but newer information shows Google has switched gears and could call it Nearby Unlock.

For those who understandably haven't followed along, Google announced in January that there would be a new system allowing Wear OS devices to unlock not just your phone but your Chromebook and other devices too. A more recent teardown of Play Services spotted a feature called Smart Unlock being worked on for "eligible Wear OS 3 devices," which would allow them to automatically unlock your Android phone, though details at the time indicated it might be exclusive to the Pixel Watch.

Image via @MishaalRahman

An image of strings of text associated with the new feature name, courtesy of @MishaalRahman.

The recent news here is that Esper.io's Mishaal Rahman has spotted a new Nearby Unlock name in another teardown. Curiously, this appears in addition to the Smart Unlock name right now. If it's under active development, we might be seeing a name change happening, or these could be subtly different features. But it's definitely tied to a watch based on both strings of text included in the changes like "use your watch to unlock your phone" and an animation the feature has been associated with:

A name might seem like a small thing, but there's a more complicated history here. Back in April, rumors swirled that Google would kill/remove the Smart Lock feature on Chrome OS, which allows you to sign in on a Chrome OS device using just your phone if it's nearby. At the time, code-level changes indicated it was being "deprecated." Some were upset and thought the change meant the feature was going away, but yet other code changes indicated it was still under active development. Although there's no smoking gun, in the context of these recent teardowns and Google's announcement in January, the feature might just be getting rebranded as part of a wider and more unified device-unlocking effort that calls the feature the same name across platforms — a potentially very Apple-like move.