Use Your Android Device As A Security Key On iOS

If you’re one of those chaos-embracing individuals who own and use both Android and iOS devices, Google is now letting you use your Android smartphone as a physical security key for signing into your Google account on iOS.

We’ll show you how to set this all up, but we want to first acknowledge concerns that have been raised over this form of two-factor authentication (or 2FA, which is different than text-based two-step security). These include reports that using your Android device as a security key for iOS can be a fussier process—if it works at all.

That said, the whole process worked fine for us and was pretty simple to set up. Here’s how to try it out yourself:

• Before you can use it to sign in on iOS, you need to designate your Android phone as a physical authenticator key for your Google account, a process we’ve explained previously.

• You’ll then want to download the Google Smart Lock app to your iOS device if you haven’t already.

When Smart Lock is installed and you’re ready to sign in, follow these steps:

1. Enable Bluetooth on both devices.

2. Open Google Smart Lock on your iOS device.

3. Sign into your Google account, and use your phone as your 2FA key, which will send a push notification to your Android device.

4. Check your Android phone, and tap the notification when it appears.

5. Follow the instructions to complete the sign in.

You can use the above instructions to verify your logins on an iOS device. The process worked fine for us, but as we said before, some reports suggest the process may not go as smoothly as Google may have envisioned. If it works, then congrats—you have a new 2FA login method for your Google account on iOS! If it doesn’t, check our suggestions for other two-factor security tools to consider instead.