Google already lets you unlock your phone using a Pixel Watch through the Watch Unlock feature, but now it seems like the company is working on letting you do it the other way around as well.
Strings of code found in the latest Connected Phone & Watch app show a “Phone to Watch Unlock” feature. When it launches, this will automatically unlock your Pixel Watch when your paired Pixel phone is unlocked. Unfortunately, this is very likely exclusive to a Pixel phone and Pixel watch pairing.
Anyway, once you get it, you will be able to skip entering a PIN or pattern and simply unlock your phone to use your watch. You may even see proactive notifications like “Automatically unlock your watch?” and “Unlocking your watch just got easier” to let you know about the feature when it becomes available.
This will require a one-time setup. You will have to enter the watch’s PIN or pattern on your phone before it is allowed to automatically unlock your watch. If you get a new Pixel Watch, the trusted relationship between your old one and your phone will be transferred to the new watch without having to redo the whole setup.
It’s still unclear when Google plans to launch this feature, but the Pixel Watch 5 is going to be unveiled on August 12, so we wouldn’t be surprised if unlocking your watch with your phone will debut alongside it.