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>>But you gain the convenience of unlocking your phone while wearing gloves, having dirty/wet hands, for people with callouses/scarring/other finger issues that have prevented Touch ID from ever functioning reliably (or at all)

How does Face ID perform when you are wearing sunglasses?




>"Most sunglasses let through enough IR light that Face ID can see your eyes even when the glasses appear to be opaque." Federighi said

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/14/face-id-works-with-sung...


Only if the IR filters in the glasses don't work on the IR structured light. You can buy dsark glasses without IR filters, but most nice ones are 99% blocking.

He said most... so 50% of glassess would be sufficient to meet Feserighi's claim.


Do the IR filters in those nice glasses block the wavelengths that the iPhone’s sensors use? I imagine they’re aimed at blocking the sun which is probably not the same spectrum.


They are broad band IR filters because those are easier to design. Apple is likely using a very narrow band that doesn't have sun problems (see IR window from 8-14nm). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_window

However that nice band also gets filtered by polycarbonate which is common in sun and protective glasses. It also gets heavily cut by other typical IR absorbers, and creating a pass window will cost more money.


Thanks for the info. It will be interesting to see how it plays out once this thing is released.


Sunglasses are meant to block UV, not IR ;-)


Sunglasses prevent the “attention” check that Face ID requires by default, but which can be turned off.




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