From negative reviews to declining hardware sales, the Pixel 4 wasn’t exactly a rousing success for Google. None of Google’s flagship phones have reached the level of the iPhone or the Galaxy S, but the consensus was that the Pixel 4 was Google’s most disappointing effort to date. Much of that disappointment stemmed from the countless issues that the phone shipped with, but it looks like at least one of them is finally going to be fixed.
One of the notable upgrades on the Pixel 4 was face unlock, which is similar to Apple’s Face ID security system. The feature works as advertised, but the issue is that it’s still possible to unlock the phone with your face even if your eyes are closed. Apple’s Face ID is “attention-aware,” which means the phone needs to see your eyes before it will unlock the phone. Face unlock, on the other hand, works even if you’re asleep.
The good news is that, as Android Police reports, if you search for “eyes” in the Pixel 4 settings, you will see a new option that reads “Require eyes to be open: To unlock the phone, your eyes must be open.” Google said that it was working on this setting months ago, but it appears that it might finally be ready for primetime.
Unfortunately, even though the setting can be found on Pixel 4 phones, it can’t actually be activated yet. If you go to the face unlock settings, you won’t see anything about requiring your eyes to be open.
As Android Police notes, this same setting was seen in early leaks of the Pixel 4, but was mysteriously absent when the phone actually shipped. Hopefully, it will go live in an update in the coming weeks.
