Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro Bring Back Face Recognition Feature Following Apple's Face ID Success

Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro's face recognition is not as good Apple's Face ID, as it can struggle in low light and is more vulnerable to being spoofed.

By Reuters | Updated: 7 October 2022 10:56 IST

Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro Bring Back Face Recognition Feature Following Apple's Face ID Success

Photo Credit: Google

Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro will allow users to unlock their phones with their face

Highlights

Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro were launched on October 6
Both phones offer support for facial recognition functionality
Pixel 7 series users can't use it for signing into apps, making payments

Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, Google's latest Pixel phones, saw the return of facial recognition on Thursday after a short hiatus due to challenges on cost and performance, according to three former employees at the Alphabet unit knowledgeable about the efforts. The feature on the new Pixel 7 is not as good Apple's Face ID unlocking mechanism, as it can struggle in low light and is more vulnerable to being spoofed. In addition, Google has said it is not secure enough to enable signing into apps or making payments.

The return comes after Google became stricter about launching products with facial recognition, in part due to questions about its performance on darker skin. The company took time to review its approach to training and testing facial recognition since the previous Pixel with the capability launched in 2019, one of the sources said.

Google declined to comment on several specific questions about its history with face unlock. It said generally, "Thanks to advanced machine learning models for face recognition, Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro feature Face Unlock, but we're doing it a little differently." It added, "We achieve good facial accuracy performance with the front-facing camera."

Google Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro With Tensor G2 SoC Launched in India: Details

Google's pursuit of face unlock for Android smartphones spans at least a decade, but it came under greater pressure when Apple released Face ID in September 2017, the sources said.

To that point, Google struggled to devise a system that both performed quickly and was impervious to spoofing, or the use of photos or hyper-realistic costumes to fool someone else's phone into unlocking, one of the sources said. Engineers toyed with requiring a smile or a blink - proving a person's "liveness" - to combat spoofing but it was awkward and slow, the source said.

Another source noted that after the arrival of Apple's Face ID, which uses a depth-sensing and infrared camera called TrueDepth to map a face, Google executives signed off on a comparable technology. Google's Pixel 4, released in 2019, called its infrared depth-sensing setup uDepth.

Google Pixel Watch With 1.6-Inch AMOLED Display Launched: Details

It performed well, including in dark conditions, with no more than a 1-in-50,000 chance that it would unlock a phone for an unauthorized face, according to Google.

But the gear was expensive. And while Apple sells 240 million iPhones annually, Google has topped out at a few million, preventing it from buying parts at the volume discounts Apple does.

Google dropped uDepth in the Pixel 5 in 2020 due to costs, the sources said.

Google Pixel Phones Running Android 13 Get October Update With Bug Fixes

Face masking because of the pandemic gave Google reason to exclude the feature from last year's Pixel 6 and additional research time, two sources said.

Face unlock on the new phones relies on a typical front camera. But unlike the previous system, it cannot securely unlock apps and payments because Google says spoofing chances - such as by holding up a user's photo - are greater than 20 percent, above the 7 percent threshold it requires to be considered most "secure."

Low light and sunglasses also can cause trouble, Google says, noting fingerprint unlock remains an alternative.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

What do we know about the upcoming Pixel 7 and 7 Pro? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Google Pixel 7

REVIEW
KEY SPECS
NEWS

Design
Display
Software
Performance
Battery Life
Camera
Value for Money

Good
Sharp, 90Hz display
Good quality cameras
Good gaming performance
Bloatware-free software, timely updates
Good battery life
IP68 rating

Bad
Video recording could be better
Gets warm under load
No bundled charger
Relatively slow charging

Read detailed Google Pixel 7 review

Display 6.30-inch

Processor Google Tensor G2

Front Camera 10.8-megapixel

Rear Camera 50-megapixel + 12-megapixel

RAM 8GB

Storage 128GB

OS Android 13

Resolution 1080x2400 pixels

More Google mobiles Google mobiles price in India

Google Pixel 7 Pro

REVIEW
KEY SPECS
NEWS

Design
Display
Software
Performance
Battery Life
Camera
Value for Money

Good
Sharp, 120Hz display
Good quality cameras
Good gaming performance
Bloatware-free software, timely updates
Premium design, IP68 rating

Bad
Gets warm under load
No bundled charger
Underwhelming battery life
Relatively slow charging

Read detailed Google Pixel 7 Pro review

Display 6.70-inch

Processor Google Tensor G2

Front Camera 10.8-megapixel

Rear Camera 50-megapixel + 48-megapixel + 12-megapixel

RAM 12GB

Storage 128GB

OS Android 13

Resolution 1440x3120 pixels

More Google mobiles Google mobiles price in India

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.