Every time I have a negative opinion here I get down voted but I still want to share my personal experience and see if anyone else has this.

I’ve had 3 different flagship galaxy phones over the years since the first one with the feature. I don’t use screen protectors and even without them, the fingerprint sensor accuracy just slowly gets worse and worse over time to unlock the phone.

My fingerprint works great for a couple weeks but slowly becomes less reliable. After a handful months it drops to maybe 1 out of 5 times success to unlock my phone. If I delete the fingerprint and add it back, it kinda restarts the whole thing, but it seems like the period of it working decently degrades faster as the phone gets older.

But here’s the part that puzzles me. Notice I specifically said unlocking my phone? For some reason, it’s the only thing affected by this. All my banks, investing, MFA, and more, all those apps that need a fingerprint to use? Works almost every time the first try.

Clearly the issue can’t be how I’m using it, because then why wouldn’t all the apps have similar issues. Clearly it isn’t the physical sensor wearing out, because then why would all the other apps work as good as they do?

I feel like there has to be a software bug involving Samsung’s lock screens and the fingerprint. But I also wish Samsung would just add the sensors needed for secure face unlock. Not sure why Android continues to shun that.

  • ChesterDood@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    I’ve had my S21 U for over 2 years now, have a cheap screen protector on it, and anytime I have trouble unlocking, I warm up my thumb for a couple of seconds by rubbing it against my index finger.

    As soon as I do that it works fine again.

    This is for the about 5% of the time I have trouble. 95% of the time it works fine.

    My wife never can get hers to work but I’m able to unlock hers fine with my print.

    I think it’s really the person not the tech. Some people just always have trouble with capacitive touch devices not working well for them

    Try the warming trick and see if that helps.