Announcing Unlock With WiFi - Automatically unlock your phone when you're at home!

[Ben74#AC]

Hello AC. I'm proud to present my newest app, Unlock With WiFi.

What does the app do?

Unlock with WiFi unlocks your device when you're connected to your home WiFi network. What does "unlock" mean? It means you don't have to enter your password/pattern/PIN when you turn on your phone. When you're at home, or work, you don't need to worry about losing your phone, so why should you have to enter your password?

How does it work?

When you get home (or to work, whatever), and connect to your WiFi network, your device will unlock. Then when you leave, and the WiFi disconnects, the device will lock again.

You have to enter your password the first time after you connect to your WiFi network. This is so that if someone steals or finds your phone, they can't just bring it to your house to unlock it. After you enter your password once while connected to your WiFi network, you won't have to enter it again until you leave/disconnect.

What else does it do?

You can also set a lock delay, for when you're not at home. The default delay is set to 5 seconds, so when you turn the screen off, the device won't lock until 5 seconds have passed. That way, if you remember something you forgot to do, you can turn it back on without entering your password.

There are also options to:

Turn off WiFi when you leave home
Turn on GPS when you leave home
Turn off GPS when you get home

If you have any problems with the app, please post on this thread, or PM me. Also, the app has a built in feature for reporting bugs. It will send me the system log file via email. You need to install SendLog in order for this to work, but please do so because the log file is extremely helpful to me for troubleshooting.

Please see the FAQ before asking questions or reporting problems.

I hope you like the app, and look forward to hearing your feedback!

Known limitations:

This app won't work if your employer enforces a password policy on your phone. Many corporate exchange users have this.

It seems that cyanogen ROMs have their own lock delay setting, which interferes with Unlock With WiFi's lock delay. The screen may refuse to turn off, or come on randomly when the lock delay is enabled in both CM settings and Unlock With WiFi. To fix this, go into Settings > CyanogenMod Settings > User Interface > Screen Timeout Delay and set it to "Immediately". Do the same for Screen Turned Off Delay.

Note that on some devices that aren't running CM, using the lock delay in Unlock With WiFi will cause the same problem as above. To avoid it, disable lock delay in Unlock With WiFi.

How to get it

Unlock With WiFi is available in the Android Market. There is a free version with ads, and a paid version with no ads, which costs $1.99. You can download the free version from this thread, or get them on the Android Market:

Free Version https://market.android.com/details?id=com.benhirashima.unlockwithwififree
Paid Version https://market.android.com/details?id=com.benhirashima.unlockwithwifi

Cheers,
Ben

 

[ambientdroid]

I have a lock pattern on my phone and while it disables the lockscreen (the one where you have to swipe up) I still have to enter my pattern.

Any way around this?

Toshiba Regza T-01C running 2.1

 

[Ben74#AC]

I have a lock pattern on my phone and while it disables the lockscreen (the one where you have to swipe up) I still have to enter my pattern.

Any way around this?

Toshiba Regza T-01C running 2.1

can you press Bug Report in the menu and send me the log? thanks.

 

[ambientdroid]

Done

I'm pretty keen to get this working, good job otherwise.

 

[mo-bile#AC]

Great idea and best of luck to you. But still not good for my purposes. This leaves your phone unlocked for anyone at home or work to just pick it up and start looking through your emails, texts, photos, Facebook, or any other private information you have.

 

[ambientdroid]

Great idea and best of luck to you. But still not good for my purposes. This leaves your phone unlocked for anyone at home or work to just pick it up and start looking through your emails, texts, photos, Facebook, or any other private information you have.

Well you could specify it to be enabled on your home network but not at work.

But I don't really live with anyone that presents a security risk to my phone.

 

[Ramathorn]

I've been using this for a couple of days now and I like it. It's nice to pick up my phone and just use it instead of having to swipe and then swipe the unlock pattern too. Good job!

 

[mo-bile#AC]

Well you could specify it to be enabled on your home network but not at work.

But I don't really live with anyone that presents a security risk to my phone.

Not necessarily about a security risk. For instance, I have a 7 year old. I don't want him to be able to pick up the phone and start messing with settings, buying apps, etc..

 

[Ramathorn]

My phone tells me that there is an update available, but when I go to the market, it is unable to find the app. Anyone else having any issues with it?

 

[KCMike]

Cool idea!!

This is the type of thing that should have been built into the Android platform in the first place.

 

[dannick61]

Hi, the app stopped working. I tried everything in the "Help" and I tried to uninstall it according to what you said in "Help and I also tried to contact you through "Send Log" which doesn't work either. The app worked for awhile and now it works once in awhile.