Google’s flagship smartphone launched last year — Pixel 4, had an in-built radar. This was the reason the device was available in selected regions only. However, the company has ditched the Soli radar for this year’s flagship smartphone — Pixel 5.

This means that the “Motion Sense” feature on the smartphone is gone. Does this mean that the Soli radar sensor is gone for good? Well, apparently not. Google’s Rick Osterloh has said to The Verge that Project Soli radar and gestures will return.

He said that the sensor will be used in the future. Explaining why it didn’t make it to this year’s phone, he said that they were too expensive for the phone that the company had planned to make this year.

But note that Rick Osterloh has not confirmed if the hardware will be included in a smartphone in the future. A recent FCC filing had revealed that it might appear in the Nest smart thermostat.

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For those who are unaware, the Project Soli on the Pixel 4 smartphone allowed users to wave above the phone to play/pause and skip tracks, as well as dismiss calls and alarms. However, it’s use-case in Pixel 4 didn’t expand much beyond what Google initially offered.

It was started as an experimental project within ATAP and Google spent several years in research as well as in making the radar smaller in size. The company has positioned the air gestures as the future of controlling devices, so it seems likely that the company will keep the technology around and will experiment with it on different types of devices.

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Google Pixel 4’s new set of sensors on top of the display was the talk of the town over the past few weeks. Such a setup warranted powerful features like Motion Sense and an ultra-fast Face Unlock.  But once the phone was launched, reviewers noted that the soli radar based ‘Motion Sense’ experience was underwhelming. Even the Face Unlock feature on the Pixel 4, which was very secure on paper, came with a major flaw.

Over the past couple of years, Face Unlock has become a huge part of our smartphone experience. But most Android smartphone makers have so far opted for a less expensive and less secure Face Unlock technology. So it was exciting to see Google’s own version of Face Unlock which was secured. But it turns out, Google’s Face Unlock has a major flaw, it works even when the user’s eyes are closed. So, if the Pixel 4 user is sleeping or even dead, Face Unlock will be able to open the phone.

Most Face Unlock mechanisms, even the ones that just rely on the front camera, cannot unlock your smartphone if your eyes are shut. For example, OnePlus 7T‘s Face Unlock needs at least one eye to be open in order to unlock the device. This is a very important feature to ensure no one can unlock your phone while you are sleeping. But Google has confirmed that Pixel 4’s Face Unlock works even when your eyes are shut and unfortunately, there’s no workaround to the issue.

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Technically, Google doesn’t consider this as an issue as it believes this allows for a seamless and ultra-fast unlocking experience. But many don’t share the same feeling. BBC’s Chris Fox was the first to spot this issue. He even tweeted with video proof.

Proof, for those asking #madebygoogle #pixel4 pic.twitter.com/mBDJphVpfB

— Chris Fox (@thisisFoxx) October 15, 2019

Google doesn’t confirm whether it will add an option to fix this (issue?). But given how this particular point has got global coverage, it’s quite possible that the company adds a toggle setting via a future update to force ‘eyes to be open’ before unlocking the device.

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(Source)

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