OnePlus Needs To Fix These Fingerprint And Face Unlock Problems

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Fingerprint and face unlock are an expected, and crucial part of our modern devices, but after spending some time with the OnePlus 13, I’m reminded of a couple of annoying quirks that OnePlus still needs to address.

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OnePlus has long been really good when it comes to fingerprint sensors. They’ve been fast and accurate in the past several generations of OnePlus devices, yet two quirks have remained through virtually all of these devices.

Let’s start at the very beginning, when you first pull a OnePlus device out of the box.

There’s one annoying setup step that irks me every time I use a OnePlus device, and that’s when I’m setting up my fingerprint. During setup, you’ll be prompted to set up your biometrics, including a fingerprint, but it stops just there. After you’ve set up one fingerprint, you’re forced on to the next step in the process. The only way to add a fingerprint is to do it later on after the device has been fully set up. In theory, that’s not a huge deal, but time and time again it results in the same poor user experience – the user is ushered through the rest of the setup process, only to start using their device and to find out hours, or maybe days later that, oh, the other fingerprint won’t work.

It would take virtually no effort to fix this, by simply adding an “add another” prompt to the setup process.

This also wouldn’t be reinventing the wheel, because OnePlus’ biggest competitors (outside of China) already do this. Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy devices will both prompt users to add a second fingerprint after the first has been registered. It’s optional, so they can still go through and finish setup first if they wish, but that prompt makes it easy to get both registrations over with at once, and frankly saves a headache or two down the line.

OnePlus isn’t the only brand that does this, as I’ve noticed the same from other brands originating in China. But OnePlus in one in particular that needs to update this behavior to match the other global brands it’s trying to compete with.

More annoying in the day to day is a point I’ve talked about in the past, and that’s how face and fingerprint unlock work together on the OnePlus 13 and other devices.

While insecure face unlock is not a good thing from a security perspective, it’s a fast and easy way to use your device, so I understand why folks want to use it. That said, I find it maddeningly frustrating because the two systems – face and fingerprint – have to set on each other’s toes. If you have both systems active, face unlock might disable the fingerprint sensor before you have a chance to use it, forcing you to change your intended behavior of using that scanner and instead unlocking the device with a swipe. As I mentioned a few months ago, Google seems to be the only brand that does this correctly, as the fingerprint sensor area will convert to a button that unlocks the device if face unlock kicks in first.

This is especially important, I feel, because face unlock on the OnePlus 13 isn’t secure. As such, using that as the unlock method means I’ll later have to “unlock” the device again to use secure apps, like Google Wallet. By letting users proceed with the fingerprint sensor even if face unlock is active, it saves that step later on, and results in a better overall experience.

What do you think? Do you have any complaints about how the fingerprint sensor and/or face unlock work on your device?

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