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In the 10th anniversary edition of Galaxy S lineup, Samsung finally ditched the traditional capacitive fingerprint sensor in favor of an ultrasonic underdisaplay scanner. While the sound emitting sensor is far better than optical ones, the new age tech is not at all hackproof.
The South Korean OEM decided to keep the fingerprint biometrics firmware separate from the regular software update mechanism. As a matter of fact, they did push OTA updates for the biometrics hardware components of the Galaxy S10 lineup via Galaxy Store.
The global Exynos powered Galaxy S10 units recently started to get the June security patch. The ASF3 build brought an updated bootloader, native QR code scanner in stock camera app and tons of fixes, but S10 owners also noticed a way improved fingerprint scanner after installing the OTA.
I just got the june update half an hour ago. I dont know if its placebo or not but the fingerprint scanner definitely feels a lot faster. The phone unlocks a lot faster that before.
Edit: instead on keeping the finger for a long time on the sensor, a simple tap of the finger unlocks the phone faster.
(Source)
After digging a little, the Galaxy S10 community found that Samsung silently pushed an updated biometrics firmware alongside the June update. The version number of this new patch is 2.0.10.6 (previous one was 2.0.9.5), which is allegedly responsible for the sudden improvements.
The Qualcomm made 3D Sonic Sensor in Galaxy S10 can perform better with time, as it can learn from the finger positions and various other parameters. However, the software stack is equally important here, and it does get regularly irregular updates from Samsung.
As the patch is not distributed separately, there is no way you can force it like the previous trick:
adb shell cmd jobscheduler run -f com.samsung.android.tadownloader 4096
On the other hand, the June update is now available on various other countries of Europe and Asia. You can either wait for the OTA to hit your region or straight away flash the firmware manually to experience the fingerprint reader improvements.
Have you noticed any advancement in the fingerprint scanner performance after installing the June update on your Galaxy S10e/S10/S10 Plus? Comment below.
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