Today smartphones come with fingerprint sensors to unlock them either on the front (tactile button or in-display) or on the rear of the phone. Point is, you don’t have more than one place to use the fingerprint and unlock the device. If the latest report is anything to go by – Chinese smartphone major Huawei has filed a patent for all-screen fingerprint unlock, which would let users to unlock their phone by just clicking anywhere on the screen.
Huawei confirmed the news to Android Authority. Reportedly, the Chinese tech giant has filed the patent in six markets including China, India, Europe, Japan, Korea and the US. Per the report, Huawei has disclosed the potential use-case for the patent technology like the need for fingerprint verification for individual apps icons.
Unlike the app lock that OEMs have on their devices to allow users to unlock the app by first clicking on the app icon and then registering the fingerprint on the in-display sensor – the new tech would “theoretically unlock and launch the app in one go.” Huawei also informed Android Authority that with the in-screen fingerprint feature, users will be able to check and respond through the SMS app without unlocking the phone.
Huawei has also informed that users will be able to activate fingerprint sensors in chosen areas of the screen, which should work well in favor of conserving the battery life that often happens to drain with inclusions for such features. There is no further information on how this new patent-pending technology would function but we are hopeful the patent will be approved and future Huawei phones will come with all-screen fingerprint unlock feature.
