The adoption and practical usage of facial recognition has been slow in growing, and this might be one of the big reasons why manufacturers are delaying the launch of 3D facial recognition technology in smartphones. That said, the world’s top manufacturers have decided that on the basis of the hardware available and their own marketing strategies, that it would probably be best to push back the technology to later this year.
From what it looks like, the 3D sensor developed by Qualcomm, Himax Technologies and Truly Opto-electronics seems to be the most mature 3D sensing solution currently available in the market. The limitation here is that it is only available in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 chipset. This has caused both Samsung and Huawei to shy away from the technology for now, seeing as they want to develop their own solution for their in-house silicon.
Xiaomi had originally planned to launch a high-end model, most likely the Xiaomi Mi 7, that would be powered by a Snapdragon 845 chip and would feature a 3D facial recognition sensor. However, with the usage of facial recognition not picking up, this plan is most likely to be delayed to late 2018.
Huawei and its in-house HiSilicon Technologies – with the help of third party developers – have apparently developed the algorithms for 3D facial recognition, we have not seen it incorporated in the recently launched Huawei P20 flagship line. This must mean that the Chinese manufacturer does not deem this technology as completely essential at this point.
SOURCE: Digitimes
