Auto Unlock lets you unlock your bike without taking your phone out of your pocket. Your phone automatically connects to your bike when it senses you're nearby. Simply move your bike slightly to unlock it, and you're ready to ride.

Auto Unlock is available for the owners of a Cowboy 2 or a later bike model. It is supported on the iOS app v2.10.0+, Android app v2.8.0+, and firmware v4.8.0+. Once you're running the compatible app and firmware, go to the Settings tab of the app, and toggle on Auto Unlock.

Bluetooth must be enabled and the Cowboy app must be running in the background in order for Auto Unlock to work. We advise you to keep your Bluetooth on and not force quit the app at the end of a ride. You can still restart your phone whenever you want without impacting the Auto Unlock feature as the background apps will be reopened automatically.

Note that in Low Power Mode, iOS might sometimes kill background tasks to save more power. If that happens, simply unlock your bike manually. The same behavior happens when the Background App Refresh setting of your Cowboy app is disabled.

When you end a ride, there is a 2-minute wait before Auto Unlock will work again. This is to allow you enough time to lock up your bike without it turning it back on unintentionally. You can still turn on your bike manually through the app by pressing and holding the padlock icon in the app whenever you like.

Bluetooth must be enabled for Auto Unlock to work so we advise you always keep it on. Auto Unlock will always work: whether your app is open in the foreground; in the background or even when you force quit it.

If your device is still running Android 11 or a previous version of Android, you'll notice that a special notification will appear to keep the app running and keep the connection with your bike alive. You can make those notifications more discrete by updating the settings of the Auto Unlock notifications category. Set them to ‘Silent’ to turn off any sound or vibration, and select the ‘Minimize’ option to collapse the notifications to one line and hide the lock icon in your status bar. We don't recommend that you fully disable those notifications as it might prevent the Auto Unlock functionality from working when your app is running in the background or has had a force quit, depending on your phone manufacturer.

When you end a ride, there is a 2-minute wait before Auto Unlock will work again. This is to allow you enough time to lock up your bike without it turning it back on unintentionally. You can still turn on your bike manually through the app by pressing and holding the padlock icon in the app whenever you like.

On Cowboy 2 or later bike models, you can use Auto Lock to turn off your bike automatically when you walk away from it. Your bike will lock itself within just a few seconds from the moment you get sufficiently away from it. In case you lost the Bluetooth connection to your bike and it can’t sense you walked away, it will automatically lock itself after 5 minutes of inactivity. We use multiple sensors to confirm you’re not using your bike anymore and we can safely lock it.
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Cowboy 1 users have access to an Auto Lock timer to turn off their bike automatically after a period of inactivity. You can set the timer to 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 30 minutes after you stopped pedalling.

Not willing to wait? You can still lock your bike through the app — as always. You can also simply remove your battery with your key to shut down your bike without using the app.

The impact on your smartphone's battery is minimal.
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