Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has added a new setting that lets you use your Pixel 9’s Fingerprint Unlock even when its screen is off.
- Previously, your Pixel 9’s screen had to be turned on in order for its fingerprint sensor to be active.
- We spotted the new setting in the latest Android 16 developer preview.
Fingerprint scanners provide a handy and secure way to unlock your smartphone, but they aren’t always actively scanning for fingerprints. This is only really an issue with under-display fingerprint scanners, though, as oftentimes the screen needs to be woken first before the device activates the fingerprint scanner. Every Pixel phone with an under-display fingerprint scanner works like this, but fortunately, that won’t be the case for much longer, at least for the Google Pixel 9.
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Google released the second developer preview of Android 16 earlier today, and while digging through the update on my Pixel 9 Pro, I discovered a new setting called “Screen-off Fingerprint Unlock” under Settings > Security & privacy > Device unlock > Face & Fingerprint Unlock > Fingerprint Unlock. Its description says that you can “use Fingerprint Unlock even when the screen is off.”
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
The Screen-off Fingerprint Unlock feature is quite straightforward and works exactly as described on my Pixel 9 Pro running Android 16 DP2. Here’s a short video demonstrating it:
Shortly after publishing this article, we discovered that the Screen-off Fingerprint Unlock setting does not appear on older Pixel phones running Android 16 DP2. Digging deeper into the code for the Settings app, we learned that the feature will only appear on phones that have an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint scanner, which excludes every Pixel except the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro XL.
In any case, if you don’t want to install Android 16 DP2 on your Pixel 9 just to try this out or you have an older Pixel, then I’d advise that you try enabling an existing option like “Always show time and info”, “Lift to check phone”, or “Tap to check phone” under Settings > Display & touch > Lock screen. The first feature makes it so the fingerprint sensor is always active, since the always-on display, well, keeps the display always on. The second feature makes it so the fingerprint sensor is ready to scan your finger as soon as you lift your phone up, while the third makes it so you just need to tap once to wake the screen, and thus activate the fingerprint scanner.
Android 16 DP2 also delivers 7 new emoji from Unicode 16.0 as well as a host of new developer features. We’re still digging through the update to find out what’s new, so stay tuned for more of our coverage!