Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has added a brand new setting that allows you to use your Pixel 9’s Fingerprint Unlock even when its display screen is off.
- Beforehand, your Pixel 9’s display screen needed to be turned on to ensure that its fingerprint sensor to be energetic.
- We noticed the brand new setting within the newest Android 16 developer preview.
Fingerprint scanners present a helpful and safe solution to unlock your smartphone, however they aren’t all the time actively scanning for fingerprints. That is solely actually a difficulty with under-display fingerprint scanners, although, as oftentimes the display screen must be woken first earlier than the system prompts the fingerprint scanner. Each Pixel telephone with an under-display fingerprint scanner works like this, however luckily, that gained’t be the case for for much longer, at the very least for the Google Pixel 9.
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Google launched the second developer preview of Android 16 earlier at the moment, and whereas digging by way of the replace on my Pixel 9 Professional, I found a brand new setting known as “Display screen-off Fingerprint Unlock” beneath Settings > Safety & privateness > System unlock > Face & Fingerprint Unlock > Fingerprint Unlock. Its description says that you could “use Fingerprint Unlock even when the display screen is off.”
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
The Display screen-off Fingerprint Unlock function is sort of easy and works precisely as described on my Pixel 9 Professional working Android 16 DP2. Right here’s a brief video demonstrating it:
Shortly after publishing this text, we found that the Display screen-off Fingerprint Unlock setting doesn’t seem on older Pixel telephones working Android 16 DP2. Digging deeper into the code for the Settings app, we realized that the function will solely seem on telephones which have an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint scanner, which excludes each Pixel besides the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Professional, and Pixel 9 Professional XL.
In any case, if you happen to don’t wish to set up Android 16 DP2 in your Pixel 9 simply to do this out or you’ve gotten an older Pixel, then I’d advise that you simply strive enabling an present possibility like “All the time present time and data”, “Elevate to verify telephone”, or “Faucet to verify telephone” beneath Settings > Show & contact > Lock display screen. The primary function makes it so the fingerprint sensor is all the time energetic, because the always-on show, effectively, retains the show all the time on. The second function makes it so the fingerprint sensor is able to scan your finger as quickly as you raise your telephone up, whereas the third makes it so that you simply have to faucet as soon as to wake the display screen, and thus activate the fingerprint scanner.
Android 16 DP2 additionally delivers 7 new emoji from Unicode 16.0 in addition to a number of latest developer options. We’re nonetheless digging by way of the replace to seek out out what’s new, so keep tuned for extra of our protection!
