How To Disable Smart Lock From The Lock Screen On Android
We’ve talked about smart lock on Android quite a bit. It’s an unlocking mechanism on Android that will keep your device unlocked if it’s in your pocket, if you’re in a particular location, or if a trusted paired device is connected to your phone. Smart lock on Android has quite a few options and leaves iOS with its support for just the Apple Watch as s trusted device way behind. Of course, there are also risks that come with using smart lock e.g., if you lose your device you may remotely disable Smart lock. If you have your device on hand but still need to disable smart lock quickly, you can disable it from the lock screen.
Android supports a lot of options under smart lock and any one of them can prove to be a problem even if you have your device in your hand. Fortunately, there’s a quick way to disable smart lock from the lock screen.
Disable Smart Lock
When you have smart lock, or even just a PIN set up on your device, a pad lock icon appears at the bottom of the lock screen. It indicates the lock state of your device. If the pad lock icon is open, it means the device is unlocked. This pad lock also doubles as a switch for turning Smart lock off. All you need to do is press and hold on it.
This will disable smart lock and the only way to enable it is to unlock your device manually i.e., by entering the PIN or password for your device, or by using fingerprint unlock if supported and configured on your device.
That’s basically where this feature falls short; the fingerprint unlock isn’t disabled. On iOS, you can quickly disable Touch ID and Face ID by pressing the power button/side button five times in quick succession.
This feature to disable smart lock appears to be one that keeps your device out of nosy people’s hands but disabling fingerprint unlock keeps law enforcement from forcing you to unlock your device that way. There are ways to get something similar on Android but it involves using third-party apps or using Tasker.
There are rumors that a quick way to disable fingerprint unlocking may be added in Android P but those are just rumors. This feature is available on Android Marshmallow and above though, on some devices, it may have been removed by your device manufacturer.
