A new feature has snuck into the Chrome OS dev channel that, while not yet fully baked (okay, it's still mostly a block of ice), could one day allow users to unlock their Chromebooks automatically just by having their phone in close proximity. This feature is "Easy Unlock."

The feature is disabled by default, but people running on the dev channel can enable it at chrome://flags/#enable-easy-unlock.

After restarting, Chrome OS will toss up a notification with the option to enable the feature. Clicking on it will bring up a window with an introduction.

Unfortunately, that's where the excitement ends. Though the window indicates that it has three pages, nothing happens when trying to swipe away from the first one. When I click on the "Find your phone" button, the window appears to start searching, but nothing happens.

Aside from this, the feature shows up under Chrome settings, but clicking the button there just brings up this same non-functional window.

That appears to be it for now. There's a chance the feature is looking for an Android app that isn't yet available. Regardless, this is definitely a feature to watch.

Here are two code commits relevant to the functionality that's already present.

Thanks, Kenji.