John is a writer at Pocket-lint. He is passionate about all things technology, and is always keeping up with the latest smartphone and PC releases. John has previously written at MobileSyrup. When he’s not reading and writing about tech, he enjoys listening to history podcasts and watching documentaries.
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Google's face unlock feature for Pixel smartphones is pretty great. Despite only relying on a single front-facing RGB camera and AI algorithms, it manages to meet Android's highest biometric security standard of Class 3. Impressively, it achieves this metric without any of the advanced hardware found in the iPhone's FaceID system, including a flood illuminator, a dot projector, and an infrared camera.
Without these hardware additions, however, the Pixel's face unlock does suffer in low-light environments. In fact, it's nearly impossible to authenticate using your face when in the dark, which is in stark contrast to the iPhone. Google, for its part, appears to be working on a solution to this, and it's a pretty ingenious one: simply light up the screen momentarily when authenticating to give the camera sensor more light to work with.
The folks over at Android Authority have uncovered software references for a 'Face Active Illumination' feature, and they've managed to gather screenshots of the user interface intended for the functionality. When uncovered, a new 'Brighten screen in low light' toggle appears within Face Unlock settings, though the UI looks to still be a work in progress.
This new facial recognition reference code appears in Android 17 Quarterly Platform Release 3 (QPR3) Beta 2, which is currently in testing. According to Android Authority, strings point towards there being a slider to pick a brightness level, with potential presets including 'Comfort' and 'Reliable.' Google might also let you enable or disable the feature in different contexts, such as turning it off when in Do Not Disturb mode.
Microsoft is testing a similar feature within Windows 11
Big tech minds think alike
Curiously, Microsoft is currently working on a similar face unlock illumination feature within Insider Preview builds of its Windows 11 desktop operating system. In a recent blog post for the Experimental release channel, Microsoft says "Windows Hello facial recognition can temporarily brighten your screen to help you sign in when you're in a dark or dimly lit room."
It's interesting to see both Microsoft and Google working simultaneously on such a similar feature, with both tech giants landing on the same solution to the problem of low-light making for an inopportune face unlock environment. I'll be very curious to see how the feature ends up working across both Windows 11 and Android when it debuts, and whether it'll prove distracting, subtle, or somewhere in the middle.
In any case, I'm glad to see Google taking measures to improve the Pixel's face unlock across a diverse array of ambient conditions. When paired with the excellent ultrasonic fingerprint sensor found on modern Pixel phones, it's easier than ever to stay locked and secure without the need to fumble around with a PIN or a password.