Summary
- Android 16 will enable Pixel users to unlock through the fingerprint scanner when the screen is off.
- The feature is easy to enable in settings and will create a seamless unlock experience.
- Pixels with optical scanners can now utilize this feature, which could be seen on phones from the likes of Samsung.
For a long time, Pixel phones equipped with in-display fingerprint scanners have had one notable issue—you need to turn on your screen in order to use the fingerprint scanner. Now, Pixel phones will have this limitation solved—and the best part is that you don’t even need a newer Pixel.
Google’s upcoming Android 16 update will allow Pixel users to enable screen unlocking through the fingerprint scanner even when their screen is off. When enabled, the Screen-off Fingerprint Unlock feature allows users to simply press their registered finger onto the fingerprint scanner area on their Pixel’s display, even when the screen is pitch black. When the screen is off, you won’t have a visual cue telling you where you should press your finger, but as someone who frequently used this on Samsung phones, I can tell you that muscle memory will make this effortless relatively quickly.
Once Android 16 rolls around, the process to enable the feature is straightforward. First, navigate to the Settings app. Then, tap on Security & privacy, and select Device unlock. Choose Face & Fingerprint Unlock, then select Fingerprint Unlock, and within the “when using Fingerprint Unlock” section, locate and enable the toggle labeled Screen-off Fingerprint Unlock. Once this toggle is enabled, the fingerprint scanner will remain active even when the display is off.
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Right now, the only way to have your fingerprint scanner work while the screen is off is if you use Always-On Display, since it will display a visual cue telling you to press your finger if you want to unlock your phone. But this has been a notable omission from Pixels. Samsung phones have had this for a long while now, but Samsung has used ultrasonic fingerprint scanners for a good few years. Optical fingerprint scanners, like the ones used in older generations of Pixel phones as well as on other Android phones, light up to capture your fingerprint with an embedded sensor. Ultrasonic ones, on the other hand, use sound waves to capture the grooves in your fingertips.
These don’t really need to light up any pixels to actually capture your fingerprints, which is why on Samsung phones they work with the screen off. However, the Google Pixel 9 series moved to an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner as well, but they don’t actually work with the screen off regardless. This is a limitation Google is addressing with the upcoming Android 16 update. The feature was added for Pixel 9 phones on the second developer preview of Android 16, but as of the latest beta update, it has been brought to all eligible Pixels with an on-screen fingerprint scanner, even if they have an optical scanner.
There’s technically nothing stopping phones with an optical fingerprint scanner from scanning fingerprints with the screen off. If it detects a touch of your finger in or around the area of the fingerprint scanner, it can just start lighting up the white light it needs to capture your fingerprint. It’s not as smooth of a process as what ultrasonic scanners do, but it should work well enough.
The feature is live on the Android 16 beta and it should land for everyone once the full Android 16 update arrives for eligible Pixel phones. It’s feature-complete by now, so it shouldn’t take much longer.
Source: Android Authority
