Imagine walking up to your Mac computer and watching it unlock on its own as you approached it. I’m not talking about retina or fingerprint scanners. I’m talking about Bluetooth proximity. If you have an iPhone on you at most times, and you also happen to own a Mac, you’re going to love this trick.
RedmondPie passed on this interesting tip this morning, which allows you to unlock your Mac computer simply by having a Bluetooth-capable device on you. It’s easy, completely free, and you aren’t even required to be jailbroken. Here’s how…
Step 1. Download this file. It contains 2 Apple Scripts and the Bluetooth proximity program for your Mac. Once downloaded, open it. You want to move all the files to a folder on your desktop for easy access.
Step 2. Double click on the icon that looks like the Bluetooth logo. The program should open up and install an icon in your menu bar. Click the new icon and select Preferences.
Step 3. Make sure device monitoring is enabled, and select the interval at which you want your Mac to look for the Bluetooth device. You’ll also want to select the device that your Mac recognizes. Make sure your iPhone’s Bluetooth is on and pair it up.
Step 4. Finally, you’ll add the Apple Scripts. In the Out of Range Script field, click Change. Select the Apple Script you just downloaded that’s labeled ‘outrange’. Then do the same thing with the In Range Script.
Step 5. That’s it! To test it out, try turning your iPhone’s Bluetooth off and on and see if your Mac responds.
You’ll notice these particular Apple Scripts are setup to start playing a song in iTunes when the computer unlocks. If you want to turn that off, just open up the ‘inrange’ Apple Script and delete the top line that says “tell application “iTunes” to play.”
I actually enjoy the iTunes autoplay function. When I walked in my front door from getting breakfast this morning, my Mac instantly turned on and started filling my apartment with music. Try and tell me that’s not at least a little bit awesome.
The cool thing is, there are tons of Apple Scripts spread throughout the web that can do so much more than lock and unlock your Mac. You can use this Bluetooth proximity tool to make your Mac do almost anything, like send an email out to colleagues that you’re away from your desk — simply by leaving your office.
What do you think?