Just a few days back, Synaptics revealed that a phone maker will be revealing a device featuring its Clear ID FS9500 family of fingerprint sensors, which can be embedded under the display of smartphones. Well, it appears the phone maker in question is none other than vivo.
This information comes from analyst Patrick Moorhead, who managed to spend some time with a pre-production vivo phone featuring the new in-screen fingerprint sensor. According to Moorhead, the sensor was “fast and simple.” Considering the fact that the sensor is able to read fingerprints through a display, this is quite impressive.
It’s pretty interesting that vivo is working with Synaptics to implement an in-screen fingerprint sensor on its smartphones. After all, back at MWC Shanghai 2017, vivo showcased a phone with an in-screen fingerprint sensor, which was developed by Qualcomm. It remains to be seen exactly why vivo is going with Synaptics’ sensors instead.
Nonetheless, based on Moorhead’s favourable experience with Synaptics’ Clear ID fingerprint sensor, more manufacturers may utilise the company’s sensors on their own devices. We imagine smartphones with edge-to-edge displays will benefit the most from this.
There’s a chance vivo – or even Synaptics – will showcase the in-screen fingerprint sensor next month at CES 2018. Hopefully, more smartphones with similar sensors will be introduced next year as well.
