Sony Xperia fingerprint reader experience

General
#1

I’m on my third Xperia device now so have used (for extended periods) Xperia X, XA2 and most recently 10.

With all of these devices I have found the fingerprint unlocking similarly inconsistent.

  • I can register a fingerprint without issue
  • I find that I have to fall back to PIN about 50% plus of unlocks
  • I rarely unlock the phone with the first finger scan

So I’m wondering:

  • Is this just a general Xperia quality issue?
  • Are my expectations of finger print scanning too high? (doubt it)
  • Are there any tricks for making this process more accurate in SFOS?

Cheers,
Matt

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#2

I’m using fingerprint on the XA2 to authenticate, and for me it’s working with around 95% success.
And when it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work for second or third try also, which probably means that my finger is dusty.

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#3

I have the same problems, 50-60% of success rate.
Still, i NEVER manage to unlock at first attempt in the morning, after the phone has been locked for the whole night. Maybe my fingers undergo some kind of morphing when I sleep? :slight_smile:

In all other cases, it helps if you clean the sensor. I use one of those wet wipes for cleaning glasses. The rate improves a lot over the next couple of days.

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#4

My experience is: Cold finger (coming from outside) and wet finger is recognized especially bad. Also after washing the hands with soap or dishwashing.
With warm and dry finger it works mostly fine.
Also the sensor seems to recognise a special part of the fingertip best, I had also to find out what part of the fingertip this is, and touch the sensor with this part. This seems to depend of the way how you registered your fingerprints.
Cleaning the fingerprint sensor with a cloth is also helpful.

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#5

I have had the Xperia X since SF was supported and have a XA2 now. Cleanliness of the sensor is pretty important. The occasions when I have to unlock my phone manually are very rare but I have to clean the sensor every four or five days.

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#6

I had pretty good success rate before, but after having to do a reset recently i took even more care to register my fingerprints from different variations of the angle they will be used in.
And it got even better!
Did you make sure the “training rounds” saw your finger from all different angles, and not just enough to satisfy the enrolment logic?

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#7

This seems to have done the trick.

Interestingly the enrollment kept getting stuck telling me to clean the sensor but persisting through that and going to great lengths to cover all angles has resulted in so far 100% scan unlocks since yesterday evening.

Thanks for this advice, feels like something I must have tried previously but obviously not well enough as I’ve never had it so consistent!

#8

With my XA2 unlocking with fingerprint never worked. Downloading fingerprints is easy.Yet when unlocking the device the sim code is always asked immediately. Then it unlocks.

#9

I have the problem (10 iii, 4.4.0.7.72) that my fingerprints seem to get lost after a few days/weeks or the reading-mode automatically deactivates itself :frowning: . I can register my print newly each time, but this is a bit annoying.

Apart from I agree to the first post: The reading is not that good (needs some tries regularly), but would be acceptable for me if it didn’t switch of so often…

#10

No special differences between our Sony X Compact, XA2, XZ2 Compact Sailfish-Devices.

Only the usual Fingertip is too wet/dry/fresh soaped wasched-Phenomen.
We have a Fingerprint-Doorlock where you have to swipe your Finger over, same Phenomenom and success-Rate like on the Fingerprint-Sensors on the Smartphones.

#11

Registering not more than two fingerprints solved that issue for me.

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#12

It’s the same with all other smartphones. Register the same finger multiple times. If you have fat or something on your finger, the expensive iPhone struggles as much with the fingerprint if you don’t add it multiple times.

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#13

Yes, cold finger (coming from outside in winter) is also a problem, dirt as @oroesler said and also wet finger.
Can confirm that registering a fingerprint two or three times leads to much better results in recognizeing it.

#14

My experience differs. In my experience (Xperia 10 III) the fingerprint reader works extremely poorly. I can’t imagine Android users of the 10III struggling this much with unlocking their phone, or at least I hope they don’t have too. I also never see anyone struggling this much to unlock other brands or models.

The fingerprint reader works maybe 5% on first try. That is, from screen-off state, you press the button once to show the unlock screen, then you press your finger against the button for the fingerprint unlock. This almost never works the first time. It often takes two or three attempts to unlock. However, in many cases it will not work at all anymore and you can keep trying until the phone locks again and it will never recognise the print. The only workaround is to relock (turn off) the phone by pressing the button again and starting over. It feels a bit 50/50 if the reader will work at all.

I’m often struggling for 10 or 20 seconds unlocking my phone, which is longer than it would take to just type in the code. But once you’ve started to unlock with the fingerprint it feels like you want to finish with fingerprint unlock (sunken cost).

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#15

Damn, that’s not sounding good:(

#16

I have little experience with fingerprinting. Because of the lesser security of access. As for the Sony Xperia 10 III, it works fine when I touch the sensor slowly with a short swipe. From top to bottom or vice versa. That’s been my experience. I hope this information can be helpful and help ensure that there is no reason to doubt the functionality working under SailfishOS.

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