For one generation Google I believe never shipped the ability to unlock your phone with your face. Despite having all the hardware on the phone, it just didn't have the feature.
This was a serious feature deficit viz a viz the relevant iPhone at the time.
The gossip was, the feature was finished, completely.
Had to be ripped out after external pen-testing bypassed it with Facebook photos.
Android introduced face unlocking in 2011[0]. It used the regular front camera and hence had no depth information, which makes it vulnerable to photos[1]. It was removed in Android 10, when a new face authentication interface[2] was added. Face unlocking without specialized hardware such as what iPhones have is not secure.
Pixel is on generation 7. Only two supported face unlock: 4 and 7.
6 was rumored to have it, but it was never delivered.
6 and 7 are equivalent hardware-wise for face unlock: neither has the sensors to do it in a highly secure manner. 7’s face unlock therefore doesn’t give you access to the most sensitive stuff, like bank accounts, requiring supplemental, secure authentication, such as fingerprint.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about - the only generation that had LIDAR was Pixels 4/4XL and those shipped with face unlock.
There WAS a rumor about Pixel 6, but it doesn't have any special face unlocking camera. Pixel 7 does support face unlock without special hardware with caveat that it's less secure.
> This was a serious feature deficit viz a viz the relevant iPhone at the time.
IIRC, the iPhone uses not just a photo from the selfie cam, but adds infrared to construct a sort-of-3d-ish depth map of your face as well - that is what defeats a simple attempt at unlocking with photos.
Now, the really interesting thing to research is if a silicone molded face mask could be used to fool the iPhone into unlocking. Photos or videos of the subject in multiple angles should be enough to create a decent enough 3D face copy.
It had 2xIR cameras, flood illuminator and a dot project for that purpose.
Soli was a gimmick on top of that, so it would enable that hardware above when you were reaching with your hand for the phone.
In my case it was a gimmick because I don't see much difference between face unlock times when I reach for the phone and the most useful feature for me (swiping to change music) was working also when my windshield had wipers working.
I dream of a Pixel with normal face unlock (like in Pixel 4, not the crippled on in Pixel 7) but without Soli.
I can't believe that they ditched it after just one generation, now I'm stuck. And only reason to upgrade would be a Pixel that has photos >12mpix (not just the sensor).
Incidentally, I said to myself I would buy a Pixel 5 if it had Soli as well because it would show that Google was becoming serious about supporting features for more than 1 generation.
For one generation Google I believe never shipped the ability to unlock your phone with your face. Despite having all the hardware on the phone, it just didn't have the feature.
This was a serious feature deficit viz a viz the relevant iPhone at the time.
The gossip was, the feature was finished, completely.
Had to be ripped out after external pen-testing bypassed it with Facebook photos.
They have many, big, problems.