Google would have found a new tool to correct the poor performance of the fingerprint sensor of the Pixel 6 smartphone: facial recognition.
Citing “sources familiar with the matter”, 9to5Google reports that Google is preparing to launch a face scanning system on its Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. We’ve known for several months now that Google was planning to add facial recognition to its smartphones, but it finally seems that the feature is ready to be released.
So far it is possible that Google didn’t add this feature because of the Pixel 6’s front-facing camera, since it is not compatible with dual-pixel autofocus (DPAF), which traditional facial recognition needs. However, the new feature that Google is working on would act more like a complement to the fingerprint sensor under the screen.
Google wants to fix poor fingerprint sensor performance
Since their launch, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro have suffered from bad publicity because of their fingerprint sensor. This last one is relatively slow compared to the competitionbut Google justified this by the over-efficiency of its security algorithms.
To fix this, Google would like when a face is partially recognized by the face unlock system, the smartphone drastically reduces the requirements for getting a fingerprint match. In other words, if the fingerprint sensor fails to recognize you on the first try, it will use the data from the front camera to unlock the device.
So it looks like facial recognition won’t work on its own. You must put your finger on the fingerprint sensor.. It’s not ideal, but it would mean face unlock could be brought to both the Pixel 6 and the Pixel 6 Pro without additional hardware, even if the Pixel 6 has a less capable front camera.
According to information available to 9to5Google, facial unlocking is still planned for the Google Pixel 7 and Google Pixel 7 Pro. Unlike their predecessors, these would use a new 11 MP Samsung 3J1 selfie camera, so both smartphones should be natively compatible with facial recognition. We expect these phones in Octoberso the same system for the Pixel 6 could be unveiled at the same time.
Source: 9to5Google