It’s frightening how many people are so lazy that they can’t be bothered to use even the simplest security solutions to protect their computers and smartphones. I’m guilty myself — I typically don’t enable password security on my laptop because I’m not worried about prying eyes in my home or in my office. I try to remember to enable password protection when I travel elsewhere, but I probably only remember half the time, at best.
Now, people like me have a brilliant and free way to secure our Mac computers without ever having to bother entering a password.
DON’T MISS: My dream of having Google take over my iPhone is almost a reality
If you have a Mac computer and an iPhone 6 or any other recent iPhone, there’s a free app that you absolutely have to download immediately. The app is called Tether, and it utilizes Bluetooth Low Energy to lock and unlock your PC automatically based on your proximity to the machine.
Tether is a two-app solution, with one piece of software that runs on your Mac and a second that sits in the background on your iPhone. Battery consumption isn’t a huge issue in either case, since the app uses Bluetooth LE to avoid battery drain.
Once the connection between the two devices is severed because you walk out of range (approximately 30 feet), your Mac will automatically lock as long as you have your security settings to “lock immediately.” When you approach your Mac again and the connection is reestablished, Tether will automatically wake your computer and enter your password.
It’s that easy.
Tether is a free download and you can grab it from the developer’s website right here.
