How to Use Apple Watch to Unlock iPhone

Feb. 8, 2021

We’ve all been there right? You are out and about and you take out your iPhone to check a notification or make a call, and you have to enter your password because you’re wearing a mask. Yeah,Face ID‘s inability to unlock iPhones when you are wearing a mask is one of the biggest troubles of using an iPhone in this pandemic. However, there’s now finally a way to use Face ID with a mask. Here’s how to useApple Watchto unlock your iPhone with Face ID when you’re wearing a mask.

How to Use Face ID with a Mask

While there have been alot of tricks to make Face ID work with masks, none of them really work. At least not very reliably. But now, with iOS 14.5 and watchOS 7.4, you can use your Apple Watch to unlock your iPhone.

Note:iOS 14.5 and watchOS 7.4 are currently in the developer beta stage, but the stable version should be released by the end of this month.

If you’re using an Apple Watch and a Mac, you probably already know that you can use yourwatch to unlock your laptop. Apple’s new feature pretty much brings that same convenience to the iPhone as well. Here’s how you can set up this feature.

This might take a few seconds to enable, just be patient. Make sure you’re wearing your Apple Watch and that it is unlocked.

Note:In order to use this feature, your Apple Watch must be protected by a passcode. This is to ensure that your iPhone can’t be unlocked when you’re not wearing your Apple Watch.

Once you’ve set up the feature, you can try using Face ID with a mask on. As long as you’re wearing your Apple Watch and it’s unlocked your iPhone will get unlocked as well. However, in case your iPhone gets unlocked by someone else, you can always lock it with your Apple Watch too.

When your iPhone is unlocked with an Apple Watch your watch will show a notification informing you about it. In the same notification, you’ll find a button that says ‘Lock iPhone’. You can simply tap on this and the iPhone will get locked again, and you’ll have to enter your passcode the next time you try to unlock your iPhone with Face ID.

So that’s how you can use Face ID on iPhone with a mask. Unlike most of the weird tricks that are found on the internet, this is afeature built by Appleand it actually works all the time. Ever since I’ve updated my iPhone to the latest beta, I’ve been using this constantly and it’s never failed. So, are you going to use your Apple Watch to unlock iPhone with Face ID? Let us know in the comments.