Google is working to reduce those annoying notifications on your Pixel phones (APK teardown)

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority

TL;DR

Google is trying to send fewer notifications when your Pixel device is unlocked by your smartwatch.
To reduce interruptions, Watch Unlock notifications will appear soon depending on the distance between your phone and the paired watch.

Google introduced Clock Unlock feature Pixel Clocks last year. This handy security feature allows users to unlock their Pixel devices simply by wearing a paired smartwatch. But those who have used Watch Lock will confirm that they are tired of the “Unlocked by your watch” notification that appears every time a Pixel phone is unlocked using the feature. It looks like Google will soon find a solution to this problem and get rid of these annoying notifications.

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One Disassembling the APK It helps predict features that may come to a service in the future based on working code in progress. However, it is also possible that such projected features will not be made public.

Breaking down the APK of the latest beta version of Google Play Services (version 24.46.30 beta) has revealed that Google is working on a way to reduce Clock Unlock notifications. Once the change is implemented, users will only see the “Watch unlocked” notification if there is a significant distance between their phone and the paired device smart watch.

Code

Only get notified when your phone and watch are far apart, instead of every time your watch unlocks 
your phone
Get fewer notifications

This change will use distance-based calculations to determine when to show the “Unlocked by your watch” notification, helping reduce unnecessary alerts when your Pixel is nearby. The strings of code above give a clue as to how Google plans to implement this. We will notify you when the feature goes live. If you notice the change before we do, drop us a line at the email address listed below.

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