How Can Presence Sensing in Windows 11 Secure Your PC and Save Battery Effortlessly?

Want a Smarter PC Experience? Discover Why Presence Sensing Makes Windows 11 Safer and More Efficient

Presence Sensing on Windows 11 keeps your device safer and makes it easier to use. When you get up and leave, your computer locks the screen for you. When you come back, it wakes up, ready for you to use. This saves power and keeps your information from being seen by others.

What Presence Sensing Does

• Uses special sensors to know if you’re near or away from your computer.
• Locks your screen when you step away.
• Wakes up your computer when you come close.
• Stops others from looking at your information.
• Saves battery because your screen turns off when you leave.

How to Check if Your Device Supports Presence Sensing

1. Open the Start menu. Type “settings” and pick “Settings.”
2. Go to “System.” Then pick “Power & battery.”
3. Find “Screen and sleep.” If you see options like “Automatically turn off my screen when I leave” and “Automatically wake up my device when I approach,” your device can use Presence Sensing.

How to Turn On (or Off) Presence Sensing

1. In Settings, tap “System.” Go to “Power & battery.” Look for “Screen, sleep, and hibernate timeouts.”
2. Turn on these two options:
   • “Automatically turn off my screen when I leave”
   • “Automatically wake up my device when I approach”
   • You can use both or just one.
3. Click “More options” beside each setting. Here, you can change:
   • The distance you need to be away before your PC locks.
   • How long the PC waits before the screen turns off.
   • If the PC locks with another screen plugged in.
   • How close you need to be for your PC to wake up.
   • What happens when battery saver is on.

If you turn both off, your device acts like normal—no automatic lock or wake features.

Deciding Which Apps Can Use Presence Sensing

1. Go to “Settings.” Pick “Privacy & security.” Then tap “Presence Sensing.”
2. Turn on “Presence Sensing access.”
3. Turn on “Let apps access Presence Sensing” to let specific apps use it.
4. You can choose which apps can use this feature.
5. For desktop apps, there’s a setting to let all of them use Presence Sensing at once.
6. Turning off these options blocks apps from using Presence Sensing data. Only Windows features will have access.

What If You Turn Presence Sensing Off?

1. Go to “Settings.” Tap “System.” Go to “Power and Battery.”
2. Turn off:
   • “Turn off my screen when I leave”
   • “Wake my device when I approach”
   • “Dim my screen when I look away”
3. If you have special features from your computer maker (like HP Auto Lock), turn those off as well.

How It Works and Privacy Basics

• Presence Sensing uses hardware sensors, like ToF (Time-of-Flight) sensors. These send out a little signal; when it bounces back off a person, the computer knows someone is near or far.
• Sometimes laptops use the camera for this, but that’s not required.
• Data about your presence is kept on your device. It doesn’t get sent to Microsoft or anyone else.
• You can change privacy settings or turn Presence Sensing off any time you want.

Benefits

• Keeps your information safe around others.
• Saves power and extends battery life.
• Gets you back to work faster—no need to type in your password as soon as you sit down.
• Lets you balance between privacy and convenience by choosing which apps can use the technology.

Presence Sensing helps your Windows 11 device feel intelligent and secure, so you spend less time worrying about privacy and more time getting things done.