{"id":238989,"date":"2026-05-04T12:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/this-cool-under-display-face-unlock-tech-could-come-to-android\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T12:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:55:10","slug":"this-cool-under-display-face-unlock-tech-could-come-to-android","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/this-cool-under-display-face-unlock-tech-could-come-to-android\/","title":{"rendered":"This cool under-display face unlock tech could come to Android"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/9to5google.com\/2026\/05\/04\/android-face-unlock-polar-id-metalenz\/\">This cool under-display face unlock tech could come to Android<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/9to5google.com\/2026\/05\/04\/android-face-unlock-polar-id-metalenz\/\">https:\/\/9to5google.com\/2026\/05\/04\/android-face-unlock-polar-id-metalenz\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-04 12:40:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"9to5google.com\">9to5google.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Right as it\u2019s been revealed that Google\u2019s upcoming Pixel 11 probably won\u2019t have new face unlock hardware, a new name is showing off some impressive under-display face unlock tech that could start showing up in Android devices as soon as next year.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-713719\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Detailed in a report from Wired, a company called Metalenz is revealing its new \u201cPolar ID\u201d system that effectively makes iPhone-style face unlock hardware invisible. It does that by hiding most the hardware underneath an OLED display.<\/p>\n<p>This new technology uses a flat lens system that takes up a fraction of the space of existing face unlock setups found in the iPhone and some other devices. It relies on optical metasurfaces technology, which uses a single lens with nanostructures to bend light towards the sensors used for face unlock. Metalenz has built out this technology to also capture polarization data, which can tell how light bounces off of specific surfaces. Combined, these make up the foundation of \u201cPolar ID,\u201d which works a lot like Apple\u2019s Face ID, just without needing a big cutout in the display. That polarization data is important here, as Metalenz notes that the data from an actual human face would be different from say, a silicon 3D mask. <\/p>\n<p>Metalenz struck a deal with Qualcomm over this tech a few years ago and, now, it\u2019s ready to hit the market.<\/p>\n<p>\t<span class=\"outbrain-ad-label\">Advertisement &#8211; scroll for more content<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolar ID\u201d is set to start showing up in smartphones and laptops in 2027, with under-display tech \u201clikely\u201d pushed to a 2028 debut. The Wired report notes that, unlike Google\u2019s existing camera-based face unlock system on Pixels, this works in the dark. The under-display tech isn\u2019t all that different from under-display cameras, but the biggest difference is that the polarization data isn\u2019t bothered by the loss in quality that was noticeable in under-display selfie cameras on Samsung\u2019s Galaxy Z Fold devices, for example. In a demo, there\u2019s a minimal difference&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/9to5google.com\/2026\/05\/04\/android-face-unlock-polar-id-metalenz\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This cool under-display face unlock tech could come to Android https:\/\/9to5google.com\/2026\/05\/04\/android-face-unlock-polar-id-metalenz\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-04 12:40:00&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/9to5google.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/05\/pixel-4-face-unlock-1.jpg?resize=1200%2C628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[70,72,86],"class_list":["post-238989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","tag-google","tag-pixel","tag-samsung"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238991,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238989\/revisions\/238991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}