Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus unlocks with the video of the owner’s face

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Dan Seifert reported for The Verge about the unlocking features of Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus.

But it’s not as fast or reliable as the traditional, capacitive fingerprint scanner on the back of the S9. The target area for the reader is rather small (though the lockscreen will show you a diagram of where to place your finger) and I had to be very deliberate with my finger placement to get it to work.

Even then, I often had to try more than once before the S10 would unlock. I’d just rather have a Face ID system that requires less work to use, or at the very least, an old-school fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone. The S10 does have a face unlock feature, but it’s just using the camera to look for your face and compare it to a previous image — there’s no 3D mapping or anything. I was actually able to unlock the S10 with a video of my face played on another phone.

Unless Samsung fixes this problem, S10 owners should avoid using face recognition.

Samsung says it developed the ultrasonic scanner because feedback from customers said they wanted the fingerprint reader on the front of the phone, and this design allowed for more screen real estate than placing a capacitive sensor in a bezel below the screen. The S10 also lacks the iris scanning login option of older Galaxy models, which would have required more sensors than the new hole-punch screen design has room for. The company told me that it will continually adjust and optimize the face scanner’s performance leading up to the S10’s availability.

But here’s my feedback to Samsung: go copy Apple’s Face ID system. It’s far easier and more reliable to use than the S10’s nifty-looking but ultimately disappointing in-screen fingerprint scanner.

If it was that easy to copy Face ID, you would see more phones with comparable facial recognition sensors.

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