OnePlus reveals why and how Face Unlock is coming to the OnePlus 5

A few days ago, OnePlus confirmed that its facial recognition feature Face Unlock, is coming to the OnePlus 5. This morning, OnePlus announced the 'why and how' this is being done. The why is pretty simple to see. The feature, which OnePlus devised as a alternative to the fingerprint scanner, received plenty of positive feedback from OnePlus 5T users. The company pointed out that requests to bring Face Unlock to older OnePlus models show how popular Face Unlock is among the OnePlus community.

Now, the how. OnePlus will disseminate an open beta build of Face Unlock to the OnePlus 5. This way, owners of the handset will be able to start testing Face Unlock, if they so desire,  while OnePlus works on exterminating any bugs. Once that is completed, an Official Release of Face Unlock will be pushed out to OnePlus 5 owners.

And OnePlus might not be done adding Face Unlock to other models. Last weekend, co-founder Carl Pei opened up a poll on the OnePlus forum and on Twitter, asking OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T users whether they would want Face Unlock on those two models.

OnePlus' facial recognition system is faster than Apple's Face ID, but it is not as secure. It won't verify the user's identity for any mobile payment system or mobile banking apps. Unlike the 3D sensors employed on the Apple iPhone X for Face ID, Face Unlock uses identifying marks such as the distance between a user's eyes and the space between the nose and lip. Special identifiers are used in low light conditions, and if the user wears glasses. The system also makes sure that the subject is a live person and is not a picture. After five unsuccessful attempts to unlock a phone using Face Unlock, the feature is deactivated requiring the use of the fingerprint scanner or a security code or pattern to get into the phone.


source: OnePlus