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Comment by sn_master | Hacker News Reader

I use Pixel 4, and I absolutely hate not having a fingerprint sensor.

Cons:

* At night it doesn't work, because I am laying on the bed and half my face is covered.

* It doesn't work when I am not wearing my glasses. Annoying when I have just woken up or going to bed and want to check a quick notification.

* Sometimes it unlocks by itself even if I don't want it to.

For the headphone jack, I got a cheap USB-C ones and couldn't be happier. Bluetooth just doesn't work all the time. It sometimes refuses to pair for random reasons, specially if you paired it with something else, you can never be sure its charged enough, easy to forget it turned on and have the batteries depleted etc etc.

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> It doesn't work when I am not wearing my glasses

FaceID works with and without my glasses. I can't remember if it learned this automatically, or if I added it as an "alternative appearance." Does the Pixel 4 have any options like that?

FaceID is designed to work with or without glasses.

> Face ID is designed to work with hats, scarves, glasses, contact lenses, and many sunglasses. Furthermore, it's designed to work indoors, outdoors, and even in total darkness.

https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT208108

Although recently I have discovered that it doesn't work with face masks!

Imagine explaining this to someone in 2019: “Yeah, and we’re excited the new SE went back to Touch ID because it still works with the face masks we’re now required to wear!”

You know what else doesn't work with face masks? Human face recognition. There is a reason why robbers use masks.

Setting high standards, aren't we? :)

>> There is a reason why robbers use masks.

This is a great point.

If it’s sunglasses with a strong filter, or possibly unfortunate polarization, it may cause some issues I believe.

Bright sunlight reflecting off the glasses can cause it to struggle.

It worked for me even with Ski goggles. That was really surprising.

FaceID works with my regular glasses but some of my sunglasses do not work at all (0% unlock rate with over 100 attempts in various lighting). I think it may depend on the shape of the frame and how much of your face it takes up? Not sure.

It has to do with polarization of the lenses and the "Require attention" feature of FaceID. The notch cameras can't determine if your eyes are looking at the camera if you're wearing polarized sunglasses (depending on the type of polarization) so having that setting on will give you a 100% failure rate with something that's covering your eyes.

There is an option inside of face id settings that says "require attention". This basically means it looks for your actual pupils to unlock. if you turn this off then sunglasses will start to work, as well as off angle unlocks without sunglasses.

Mine FaceID with or without glasses/ sunglasses and I did not set anything up.

Anecdotally, mine doesn't work with sunglasses. I have to lift them up to get it to recognize me.

It really depends on sunglasses,

Doesn’t work:

- Ray-Ban wayfarers

Works:

- Ray-Ban aviators

- Maui Jim Waterways

Works with my Polaroid Wayfarer clones.

My current biggest problem with FaceID is that it doesn't work when I'm wearing a mask. Which is pretty much anytime I'm outside right now.

Never had an issue with glasses though.

I trained an Alternate Appearance with my mask on.

OTOH fingerprint sensors don't work with latex gloves. Hard to come up with PPE-friendly security!

Tell me about it. I hope Apple can address this, it's so frustrating to type in the password every single time, and some apps just refuse to work without biometric authentication (payments apps)

I haven't confirmed this but I heard if you do alternate views with half a mask on both sides you might be able to unlock with a mask. I don't own a faceID phone so don't know if this is true.

> It doesn't work when I am not wearing my glasses

Are you holding the phone too close to your face?

I was getting frustrated that FaceID wouldn't work for me in bed when I wasn't wearing glasses, but I discovered it was because it was holding it so close to my face to read the screen (I'm very short sighted) and the camera couldn't focus (yes my eyesight is that bad haha).

Yup, it took me a few months to realize this. In the morning when I need to unlock something, I have to double the distance between my face and the phone for FaceID to work.

He has a Pixel, not an iPhone

FaceID has never failed to work for me with sunglasses on.

Must be hit or miss. Never works for me if I have my sunglasses on.

Pixel 4 face unlock works for me with big aviator sunglasses as well as not. I forget if I added another face or not though. Though, it doesn't work with a mask on and its not as fast so I do miss the fingerprint sensor.

This sums up my experience with the Pixel 4 too. It's not enough to push me away from it, but it's a bunch of minor annoyances that make me have to enter my rather long passcode more often than I should have to.

FWIW the Apple implementation of Face ID deals very well with both sunglasses and regular eyeglasses as well as the absence of them. Face masks, obviously, not so much however!

I don't actually have much of an issue with glasses or sunglasses on. Google's implementation isn't bad, but I do miss my fingerprint scanner.

It works for me at night, with/without glasses and also with a massive headset on. I haven't had any issue with Bluetooth so far (it was painful with a OnePlus before). Battery has been surprisingly decent too. The issues I have are a very slow Google Maps and the display is absolutely useless in a bright environment.

Hate the face ID on my pixel 4. Requires me to hold my phone at the perfect angle/distance to work reliably, and even then, it's slower than the fingerprent sensor on my Pixel 1 was.

(This subthread was originally in reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22878765)

FaceID is so terrible. It's hard to imagine a company based out of sunny California invented an authentication system that requires you to remove your sunglasses. It also sucks in any bright environment like say... the beach. Which they don't have much of in California of course. When the ambient IR is too high the sensor can't see it's own tracking dots on your face so it can't build the 3D mesh to authenticate you. To make matters worse, FaceID also fails if you have a face mask on which is particularly relevant today.

With iPhone you can set up an alternate appearance to work with accessories like glasses/sunglasses or I assume a mask, though both might make it less secure. Personally I love Face ID. There are times it won’t work like when I’m actively brushing my teeth or wearing a mask, but those are rare enough for me and there times you can’t use Touch ID either like if you’re wearing gloves. Ideally they would have Touch ID under the screen and you could use either one.

Works perfectly fine in every pair of sunglasses I own.

Of course fingerprint sensors also fail in common situations like when your hand is sweaty or not clean, or the phone isn’t dry.

How should Face ID work with a mask that covers half or more of your face? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

Exactly. That's why having an under glass fingerprint sensor is such a good idea.

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