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Comment by scotchmi_st | Hacker News Reader

I've seen things similar to this before, but they tended to be unreliable. Has anyone actually used this yet? Does it work reliably?

Also, how does the authentication work exactly? What's to stop someone from blasting out the same signal that your phone emits, preventing it from sleeping as you walk away?

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This is EXTREMELY unreliable, not only is it's distance measurement way off (to be expected, BT wasn't designed as sonnar) but the app "forgets" your computer after being away for ~5 minutes. YES, I paid for pro and YES, I allowed it to run in the background. When I come back to my computer not only does it not unlock but the phone apps wants to walk me through pairing again.

Do not waste your time/money on this app. It may have a nice UI but it simply doesn't work!

You are right for the distance, it uses bluetooth signal strength for the distance estimation with an optimization algorithm and it can not provide the exact value, only an estimation. The app should NOT forget your computer at all. We have experienced that before but managed to fix it in the last release. Please send an email to support@nearlock.me with your exact configuration (iPhone, software, Mac, software) and we'll try to reproduce the bug.

How does this compare with Knock?http://www.knocktounlock.com/

What are the others?

I've used Knock before and while ultimately I settled on using Alfred (app launcher+) to lock my computer it worked leaps and bounds over this app.

Knock is crap, MacID better https://translate.google.com.ua/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&p...

If I understand MacID correctly, the unlock process is interacting with a lockscreen notification, then TouchID?

If my phone is in my pocket (it will be) this takes longer and involves much more juggling than typing in the computer's password directly.

If your phone not in the pocket, then anyone has access to your mac. It's big security hole.

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