Hacker News Reader

Comment by canistr | Hacker News Reader

At first I thought this was similar to a bike lock so that your Mac can't get stolen. But that doesn't appear to be what this is. I don't see why simply "locking" your screen with something as simple as configuring a Hot Corner (all I do when I leave my Mac is swipe my trackpad to the bottom left) and it locks the screen. Logging in again isn't a problem no matter where it is. The fear is that if I'm in a coffee shop, my entire device will be stolen.

View on HN

Yep.

A friend brought up another scenario, where you have to get up fast. If the Hot Corner is not fast enough, you can always just close the lid.

On the other hand, a fob like that seems unreliable in comparison. Aside from "steal the fob" (which, arguably, is similar to "steal the Mac, get info from Mac"), what is the operating envelope? At what range will it shut it down? At what range will it reactivate? How reliable is it?

For $40, my return on investment is paltry. I understand why it cost that much because of the hardware, but for that amount of money I could do a lot more than buy a screen lock.

The range is configurable. One of the things this adds is a button. A button-press can be required to unlock the screen in addition to being nearby. It's very reliable.

You can lock the screen with control-shift-eject (if you have an eject button).

cmd-opt-eject is also an option

Edit: this is actually to sleep the whole machine I think

I never knew that... thanks!

Or ctrl-shift-power if you don't.

And on Windows, it's just Windows-L.

> steal the fob

And this is why this is worse than a phone-based solution. With a phone, it could require you to unlock the phone before it can be used to unlock the computer. Sort of TouchID-by-proxy. With a fob, it can't authenticate you.

Even worse, the 'lock device' has a built-in battery that is replaceable. Your battery died while you are in that coffee shop? Well, you are just going to have to get a new battery somewhere so you can login to your computer. No, there is no usb port on this device so you couldn't just power it that way.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com