Review: Facelock

Score:
70%

Author: InDT

Version Reviewed: 1.00 (0)

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The principle is simple - you take a picture (using the front facing camera) of your face, and hit the lock button in the app. To unlock your phone, you take another picture and as you have the same face, there's a match and you have access to your phone. (Relax, there's a back-up PIN system you can set and use if you've had a rough night).

The big issue is that this isn't a face scanner per se, but a photo analyser. That means even when looking at the same face, with the same smile, in the same physical location, a change in the lighting conditions  is enough to completely throw the system off. If you can, take your locking picture with your light in front of you (like a good photographer normally would) and then when unlocking, face the strongest light source. That helps with the recognition process, which can take a bit of fine tuning as you move around to get lined up. Don't expect to be able to unlock with a quick glance at the screen, you'll need to relax, strike a pose, and then there's nothing to it. Apart from time.

 
I've got a great idea for a Queen album cover...

To help get the front facing camera into the same position as you took the photo, you have a helpful guide in the form of a ghost-like transparent image of the target face, so you can move around to line up your face underneath the target to aid the matching process. Which is almost like a game in itself the first few times you use Facelock. But only the first few times...

Anyone who's done anything online is going to have pictures of themselves available - could a picture of you unlock your phone? That's actually harder than it sounds. Unless you have a "mug shot" style picture online that matches the facial pose you used when creating the lock image, and has lighting that is comparable to the lock picture then it's going to be very hard, although in theory it must be possible. But why look for a different picture when the unlock image is already on the screen?

Effectively showing the password while you enter it is an interesting design choice. The location of the camera means using a mirror isn't going to work (tried that), but surely there's a solution here? That thinking led to a quick Mission: Impossible test, and the answer is yes, if you take a picture of the lock screen and then mirror it, you can unlock the handset by waving your Windows Phone (or whatever) in front of your Symbian device. It's just a shame that the picture on the HTC Trophy doesn't self-destruct after five seconds.

Will it unlock... yes!

I get the feeling that Facelock is in the App Store not to get lots of downloads, but to get noticed. First by people looking to do cool things with their phone (and get their feedback) but also to get the attention of the industry. This is pretty much what you expect from a tech demo. I'd be loathe to have this running on my main phone as a security utility, even with the password facility, but I'll likely keep it squirrelled away in a folder for when I want to show something different on the phone.

It's cute enough for that.

-- Ewan Spence, Oct 2011.

Reviewed by Ewan Spence at 9:22 UTC, October 6th 2011