Poll: Do you value face unlock on your smartphone?

Today’s Android smartphones usually rely on fingerprint scanning to unlock the device, authenticate payments, and more. But there are plenty of devices with face unlock technology as well, letting you unlock your phone by simply looking at it.

Do you value face unlock tech on your smartphone though? Or is it something you don’t care about? That’s what we’re asking in our featured poll today. So let us know by taking the poll below and leaving a comment if you have more to share.

There are a couple of reasons why you might want face unlock on your phone. For one, facial authentication can be speedier to unlock than some in-display fingerprint sensors. 3D face unlock (using dedicated sensors) can also be more secure than conventional fingerprint scanners.

Face unlock isn’t perfect though, as camera-based face unlock can be easily spoofed with a photo or other similarly low-tech methods. This is why camera-based face unlock tech is never used for tasks like authenticating bank payments. Another downside to face unlock is that it doesn’t play nicely with masks, although Apple has made progress in this area. Finally, it’s possible for people to unlock your gadgets by pointing your own phone at your unwitting face (e.g. kids using your face unlock to approve in-app purchases).

So how important is face unlock to you? Give us your opinion by voting above.