Xiaomi Mi 7 Could Ditch Fingerprints For Facial Recognition

With Apple being responsible for popularizing fingerprint scanners on phones, the company sure made a bold statement when they decided to drop the feature in favor of facial recognition technology in the iPhone X. This has prompted a lot of speculation and rumors that other Android OEMs could be following suit.

In fact according to a report from Chinese publication MyDrivers (via BGR), it seems that Xiaomi could be thinking of doing the same with their upcoming Mi 7 handset. The report claims that just like Apple, Xiaomi will be ditching the fingerprint sensor and will move towards a facial recognition system, but whether or not it will be on par with Face ID remains to be seen.

So far there are a few Android OEMs who have included facial recognition in their phones, although this is more about matching the user’s face with an image stored on file, versus the 3D scanning tech that Apple uses. It is unclear if Xiaomi’s will live up to the hype, especially when you consider that it was suggested that Apple’s TrueDepth system used in Face ID is so advanced that it has reportedly given the company a 2.5 year lead on their competitors.

In any case take it with a grain of salt for now, but while there are rumors of companies adopting facial recognition, another interesting feature to look forward to would be in-display fingerprint sensors which Synaptics is currently mass producing for some Android handset makers.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones, Rumors
Tags: Security, Xiaomi