Motorola smart Skip: unlock your phone with just a tap

Spend some time each day unlocking your phone with a four-digit PIN or pattern, and you may find an additional three minutes that you could be playing Plants vs. Zombies. But Motorola has a solution: The Motorola Skip — a thin, thumb-sized clip that unlocks the Moto X smartphone with a simple tap.

Wear Skip on your shirt sleeve, belt loop, glasses frame — wherever it feels comfortable, the Motorola team wrote in a blog post. “It’s fast, easy and secure. It provides all the benefits of a PIN without the hassle,” they said. The company first revealed its “futuristic ‘superpower-like’ authentication method” during this year’s D11 conference, when Advanced Technology and Projects group leader Regina Dugan showed off the device.

Each tiny tapper comes with three dots, or stickers, which provide another form of authentication for touchless control. Slap one on your car’s dashboard, your nightstand, or your desk at work, and just tap the Moto X to the dot to unlock your phone. Place the handset on top of the sticker to activate voice commands: “OK, Google Now, set alarm for 7 a.m.” or “OK, Google Now, what is cardamom?”

Motorola unveiled its new flagship smartphone early this month, boasting a 4.7-inch, 1,280-by-720 display with 316 pixels per inch. The device features a curved back and will run Android 4.2.2 at launch.