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The Google Pixel 4 gets its biggest update yet: eyes open face unlock

The update is out today

The Google Pixel 4 gets its biggest update yet: eyes open face unlock
07 April 2020

The Pixel 4 had close to rave reviews when it first came out – but there was one big criticism.

That was the lack of eyes-open face unlock – in short, that the phone's face unlock feature didn't require you to have your eyes open to work.

This might not seem like a big deal, but in fact represented a fairly big security flaw: it meant, for example, that somebody could unlock your phone while you were sleeping. Not ideal for anyone who didn't want their phone to be unlocked while they were sleeping.

Google responded fairly swiftly to the criticism, saying in October that there would be an update in "the next few months". That update never materialised – until now.

It means the phone has caught up with Apple on this front: that company has had eyes-open face unlock since 2017.

If the feature doesn't excite you, or you don't feel you need it, you can always disable it in your settings – and there are a few other new features that might be more relevant.

The update also contains a fix for dropped Bluetooth audio, and there's a correction for keyboard lag.