Lock phone when left behind with Pixel Watch

Your paired watch acts as a digital safety tether for your phone. When your phone moves out of range and the Bluetooth connection with your Pixel Watch is severed, your phone is programmed to secure itself instantly. This feature is active as long as you are wearing your watch.

How it Works

Upon disconnection, the following sequence occurs:

1. Identity Validation: Before the final lockout, the phone triggers a mandatory identity validation using PIN, Pattern, or Password, Fingerprint or Face Unlock.
2. Automatic Lock: The phone transitions to a secure state, preventing any interaction with the home screen or apps.
   • Automatic lock triggers if it determines that your identity validation hasn’t been confirmed.

What Triggers the Lock?

The auto-lock sequence begins whenever the connection to the paired and unlocked watch drops, such as when:

• You walk out of range of your phone.
• You turn on Airplane Mode on either device.
• You manually turn Bluetooth off on either the phone or the paired watch.
  • Your phone asks for a PIN or biometrics (fingerprint or face) when you lose Bluetooth connection with your watch.

What you'll need to get started

Set up Lock phone when left behind

Important:

• Enable Bluetooth on both your phone and watch to use this feature.
• By default, Lock phone when left behind is off. Turn the feature on in your Google Pixel Watch’s app settings and allow Bluetooth permissions if not already allowed.

Make sure your watch is paired to your phone through Bluetooth.

1. On your phone, open the Google Pixel Watch app and select your watch.
2. Tap Watch Preferences Security Lock phone when left behind.
   • The watch must be connected to the phone to access and manage this setting.
3. Turn Lock phone when left behind on.