// the find
ts1/BLEUnlock
Lock/unlock your Mac with your iPhone, Apple Watch, or any other Bluetooth LE devices
BLEUnlock is a macOS menu bar app that uses Bluetooth Low Energy signal strength (RSSI) to automatically lock and unlock your Mac based on proximity to your iPhone, Apple Watch, or any BLE device. No companion app required on the phone side — it talks directly to CoreBluetooth. Aimed at Mac users who find password entry annoying and want something lighter than Apple Watch auto-unlock.
The passive mode is a practical escape hatch for when active BLE connections fight with keyboards, mice, or hotspot tethering — most similar tools don't bother. The hook script system (`~/Library/Application Scripts/.../event`) with distinct `away`/`lost`/`unlocked`/`intruded` events is genuinely useful for power users who want to trigger HomeKit, send notifications, or capture a webcam photo on intrusion. Keychain storage for the login password is handled correctly rather than storing it in plaintext prefs. Homebrew Cask availability means zero friction to install.
The MAC address randomization problem is a real adoption wall for non-Apple devices — Android phones and many BLE gadgets rotate their address every 15 minutes, making them completely unusable. The last commit was July 2024 and the repo shows no activity since; macOS permission APIs shift with every major release and this will quietly break. Auto-unlock bypasses the lock screen password entirely, which is a meaningful security tradeoff the README undersells — if your phone is on the desk next to your Mac, proximity-based unlocking is not actually protecting anything. RSSI-based proximity is inherently noisy through walls and multipath reflections, and the tuning knobs (unlock RSSI, lock RSSI, delay, no-signal timeout) require manual experimentation to get right rather than any adaptive logic.