Project Soli might be awesome!

[jamezr]

Project Soli might be awesome!

Aside from the hand-waving tricks, the Project Soli sensors will also enable 3D facial unlocking and password protection, a biometric that’s sorely lacking from Android phones. According to Google’s description, it sounds even more advanced that Face ID, but we’ll need to put it to the test: “As you reach for Pixel 4, Soli proactively turns on the face unlock sensors, recognizing that you may want to unlock your phone. If the face unlock sensors and algorithms recognize you, the phone will open as you pick it up, all in one motion. Better yet, face unlock works in almost any orientation—even if you’re holding it upside down—and you can use it for secure payments and app authentication too.”

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3445479/google-pixel-4-and-4-xl-preview-design-specs-features-camera-price.html#tk.rss_all

 

[ezdoit]

Project Soli might be awesome!

Anxious to see what it is all about.

 

[duratime]

It starts quiteing your phone as you reach for it! I'm sold!

 

[mookiekillsit]

I think it needs to do a little more. I was a bit underwhelmed by it but this is the tip of the iceberg IMO

 

[Chris5626]

I didn't watch the full announcement but have watched a few of the summary videos where they've condensed the presentation so I might have missed some good examples but I didn't really see Google do much to show what Soli can do for users.

Swiping left and right to change songs, ok but rather than moving my entire hand from one side of the screen to the other I could just press the button on the UI.

Dismissing alarms and rejecting calls, probably slightly more helpful for me but neither requires much effort from me on my current phone.

And that was about it other than the display going to sleep or waking based on your proximity which is nice but again doesn't seem like something I've ever felt was an issue.

Other than that I didn't see any real examples of what it could do. Don't get me wrong the technology is impressive, I've just not seen a killer feature that it enables and as Google are making a big deal about the inclusion of Soli I would have thought they would have done more to convince people how much they want/need it besides Pokemon that is.

One thing I did think about was gesture control for notifications and the quick settings. On my Pixel 3 XL I use the fingerprint reader on the back to swipe up and down to expand notifications and/or access quick settings. For me that's ideal as that is where I rest my finger, I move it a few millimetres and the phone completes the action.

With the Soli (assuming it does work for notifications and quick settings) I'm going to need to move my hand to in front of my phone then move it which means I might have to carry out more 'steps' to achieve the same result.

 

[duratime]

I think another feature is that it senses that you are going to grab for it and it turns on face recognition. The super fast face recognition was another huge selling point for me. My Note 10 face rec. is slow and the fingerprint sensor is miserably slower. All in all, there is a lot of useless crap on a all of these phones, but getting the phone secure and turned on fast, is very important to me at least.

 

[Chris5626]

I think another feature is that it senses that you are going to grab for it and it turns on face recognition. The super fast face recognition was another huge selling point for me. My Note 10 face rec. is slow and the fingerprint sensor is miserably slower. All in all, there is a lot of useless crap on a all of these phones, but getting the phone secure and turned on fast, is very important to me at least.

It will be interesting to see how well it works compared to other implementations.

Prior to the Pixel 3 XL I had an iPhone X and the face unlock worked really well on that, with the very rare exceptions usually due to poor lighting conditions or my face being partly obscured it worked consistently for me and I never recall thinking it needed to be faster.

I had a Galaxy Note prior to the iPhone X... would it have been the Note 8? Which had a face unlock feature and it just never seemed to work for me at all.

 

[dsignori]

I thought this was funny: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixe...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

 

[Jeremy8000]

Soli is capable of soooooo much more than Google is enabling it to do at this time - videos of what they were doing with it years ago are astounding. I was deeply disappointed that they really only included the most stripped down functionality at launch, and hope they integrate some functions that could really make it shine. The potential is there.

 

[duratime]

It will be interesting to see how well it works compared to other implementations.

Prior to the Pixel 3 XL I had an iPhone X and the face unlock worked really well on that, with the very rare exceptions usually due to poor lighting conditions or my face being partly obscured it worked consistently for me and I never recall thinking it needed to be faster.

I had a Galaxy Note prior to the iPhone X... would it have been the Note 8? Which had a face unlock feature and it just never seemed to work for me at all.

My wife had an iPhone 10Xs and her face unlock was working great until it just completely quit. I won't even allow you to register a face. It was still under warranty but since the camera on that phone was sub-par, we decided to trade it in for a 11 Pro+. Hopefully Google won't have that issue.

 

[Chris5626]

Soli is capable of soooooo much more than Google is enabling it to do at this time - videos of what they were doing with it years ago are astounding. I was deeply disappointed that they really only included the most stripped down functionality at launch, and hope they integrate some functions that could really make it shine. The potential is there.

I wonder what the reason for the difference between what they had it doing years ago versus what they are showing it doing now?

Is it perhaps that the functionality they showed off years ago wasn't as consistent or worked in controlled environments but not in real world day to day usage? Maybe having to shrink the technology down so much means it isn't able to do as much?

 

[Jeremy8000]

I wonder what the reason for the difference between what they had it doing years ago versus what they are showing it doing now?

Is it perhaps that the functionality they showed off years ago wasn't as consistent or worked in controlled environments but not in real world day to day usage? Maybe having to shrink the technology down so much means it isn't able to do as much?

I would lean towards the latter, but even there it should be capable of supporting much richer features than that which they've supported with it. Adjusting volume... scrolling a web page... flipping pages in ebooks...

There's no second chance to make a first impression, and they really shot themselves in the foot by not having at least one truly 'wow' function to associate with Soli.

 

[Chris5626]

There's no second chance to make a first impression, and they really shot themselves in the foot by not having at least one truly 'wow' function to associate with Soli.

Yeah considering how much they talked up Soli it seemed really weird watching the presentation and the most exciting thing they could demo it doing was rejecting a phone call or skipping a track.

I'm not criticising the technology I don't know enough about it and I haven't used it but for me they've done a poor job of selling it as a killer feature that will make all other phone owners green with envy and I'm not saying it has to be that great but Google seemed to think that's the level its at.

 

[Guyinbox]

Besides the fact that the uses for it (right now) are gimmicky, most early hands have said it just doesn't work that well.