I’ve moved from the Google Pixel 4A, which had an excellent fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone, to the 7A.
I won’t sugarcoat it: in my experience the fingerprint sensor, now an optical sensor on the front of the phone, is near useless. It fails to read my finger/thumb print basically ~95% of the time, which means it can’t be used for any account that may lock the user out following ‘x’ unsuccessful login attempts.
I really don’t get why they shipped the feature with the phone given how unacceptably bad it is to use.
Is this a common opinion shared amongst 7A users? Is there something wrong with my phone, or am I missing something? I’d welcome any advice, as I would quite like to get this working reliably.
I’m using just the regular 7, but I had issues with mine to start too. I’m also using a glass protector. I found a post saying to enable screen protector mode. This is found in display settings, seen below.
Solved most of my issues with print detection immediately. My biggest gripe now is only being able to add 4 prints, which is just stupid to me.
Never knew about that setting, and immediately seems to have improved things for me. Hopefully that lasts. Thanks!
Idk about this phone specifically, but a common ducktape fix for shitty fingerprint sensors is to scan one finger onto multiple finger scan spots, even all 5 available. That should improve accuracy.
This did the trick for me as well. Scanned each thumb twice. Now I rarely, if ever, run into an issue.
This fixed almost all of my issues on the p7. I scanned my thumb 3x. Usually works now.
It works flawlessly for me while I struggled with the 4A fingerprint sensor. With the 4A I could get it to unlock roughly 25% of the time. The 7A doesn’t work as well for my wife.
I have a theory of why it works so well for me. How oily/ wet are you fingers normally? Can you open a dog poop bag easily? My fingers are very dry and I can’t open a dog poop bag without licking my fingers. My wife can open them no problem at all.
I have to lick my fingers to open those bags (unfortunately - it’s gross 😅) so my current theory is because I have dry hands maybe that’s making it more difficult for the sensor to pick up the prints.
Hmm that’s odd. That’s kind of the opposite of what I believed. My fingers are oily and can operate the sensor great. I even saw a website suggesting that if you have trouble with the sensor, to run your finger on the outside of your nose to get it oily to activate the sensor.
I’ve had the opposite experience too! I have dry fingers and my experience has been that the fingerprint sensor on the regular Pixel 7 rarely works. Incidentally, I also have trouble opening dog poop bags.
I miss the face unlock on the Pixel 4.
Yeah, it sucks. Recently moved from a 5 to a 7a and it’s just terrible.
Maybe it will improve over time but chances are I’ll switch to another phone vefore that happens…
Are you using a screen protector? A lot of them make the fingerprint reader unusable.
I am actually, yes, and to be fair I’d not considered this. 🤔 I guess if it’s the difference between having a scratched screen or a working fingerprint reader, I’d go with the former.
During the time I used a phone with an under-screen fingerprint sensor (Galaxy A70), there were three things I’ve learned:
- After applying or removing a screen protector, it’s important to rescan all fingerprints.
- There may be an option in the settings where you can set whether you have a screen protector applied.
- You can scan the same finger twice to improve success rate.
Though even with all that, a real fingerprint sensor is still better than an optical one.
Just to add to this, in the 7A settings menu there is an option to increase sensitivity. Go to Settings > Display > Screen protector mode and toggle the option on.
In my initial tests this has noticeably improved the accuracy of the sensor but I need to give it a bit more time before saying for sure.
I found fingerprint compatible screen protectors for my 6 Pro, no reason you shouldn’t be able to do the same
Not the person you replied to, but I think I’ve heard that some screen protectors are meant for the under display fingerprint reader, but I have no experience myself. Might be worth looking into.
Personally I really don’t know why everyone keeps putting them under the display now. Its more expensive, more involved and expensive to repair, and less reliable… Why would I want that? It feels like a meaningless “shiny” feature to put on the box.
If you have a screen protector you have to turn on screen protector mode to get the fingerprint sensor to work at any sort of acceptable level. Even then it is not nearly as good as without a screen protector.
I have the exact same problem moving from the 3a to the 6a. Why did they do this? The back sensor was so good!!
Amen. #rip 3a, you were the best
The finger print reader on the pixel 6 is absolutely disappointing. I miss my mi mix 2 sometimes.
Hopefully Google moves to a proper ultrasonic sensor like every other brand with the Pixel 8. I really want to move from Samsung so I can take advantage of rooting and stuff like Lineage, but the hardware is just… so awful.
Cost cutting disguised as new feature?
I never had the displeasure to actually use it, but apparently it was even worse on the Pixel 6. Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro are basically the same as the Pixel 7a regarding the fingerprint reader.
I have a 6 Pro and mine seems to work fine even with a screen protector. It doesn’t work when my finger is wet but otherwise it’s fast and works like 95% of the time.
It blows my mind that they shipped it on the 7 and 7 Pro. It’s not really acceptable on a mid range phone, let alone a premium one.
Another “tip”… If your fingertip is dry, lightly moisten it, then try the sensor again.
My 7a fingerprint sensor with a Spigen glass screen protecter works fine about 95% of the time. When it doesn’t, quick lick of the fingertip and that usually does the trick.
For my 6a, when it gives me trouble I’ve run my finger against the outside of my nose and tried again - that’s consistently worked for me.
