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Comment by throw_away | Hacker News Reader

For me, the biggest pain point with Touch ID was that it didn't work well in the rain, which is precisely the moment when the touch screen for manual password doesn't work all that great either.

I'm hoping masks are more of a transient thing, long-term, than the rain.

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FaceID doesn’t work with sunglasses on either. It would be nice if we could just have both to cover most weather scenarios. Of course too much face covering and gloves in the winter and neither are going to work then (;

It works with sunglasses for me, which has always made me wonder how well it's actually working

It definitely doesn’t work with mine, just a black pair of Ray-Bans. I just tried it again to make sure it hasn’t changed with the latest update. I use my phone as an offline GPS for hiking and it’s been a constant frustration for me, as there is a significant delay before it gives you the keypad after FaceID fails. I’ve tried setting up an “alternative appearance” in FaceID with my sunglasses on and it just complains that my face is obstructed.

If it can't see your eyes because you have lenses that block infrared light, then it can't tell if you're looking at the screen.

You can turn off "Required Attention for Face ID" in the Settings as a workaround.

If I designed the system, I would be continuously training the FaceID model to account for false negatives based on a correctly entered PIN after a failed FaceID unlock.

When FaceID was announced, they also said it should also continue to work with varying amounts of facial hair - which I have also found to be true.

FaceID works off of infrared light, so if your lenses don't block those wavelengths, it works.

The "trick" for this to work flawlessly (at least for myself) is to set up regular face-ID; and then setup an "alternate" appearance with sunglasses or whatever other items/accessories might cause problems.

Never had any issues; especially if you setup the alternate appearance with a mask / partially obstructed face.

Polarized sunglasses block the phone's sensors, so it can't confirm you're actually looking at the screen—That someone isn't trying to unlock it e.g. while you're asleep.

If you turn off "Require Attention for Face ID" in Face ID settings it'll work with sunglasses.

According to Apple, "Face ID is designed to work with hats, scarves, glasses, contact lenses, and many sunglasses." (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108) and from my experience, it works fine with my polarized sunglasses, but it sounds like it doesn't work for everyone.

I was doing work with latex gloves on (clean and dry) and was shocked to find that Touch ID on my iPhone 8+ worked pretty reliably through the glove.

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