[toddpart]

I've read several times that Windows Hello is 'hit or miss' or that it is not as fast as entering a PIN. I completely disagee based on my experience. I'm loving Windows Hello and I think the key is just taking a few days to train yourself not to just 'look at the screen' but everytime you want to unlock look directly at the Microsoft logo on the front.

The first day I had the phone I, too, noticed that Hello seemed slow to recognize me and wouldn't work sometime. When it was slow I noticed that I was looking directly at the center of the screen but, if as soon as I shifted my gaze up towards the camera, just a centimeter or two, it unlocked immediately. Now, I just look right at that MS logo and it is nearly 100% accurate and very fast.

Just thought this might help those who are not having a great experience with this terrific feature.

[tanders04#WN]

Wow that works really well.

I just figured out my biggest problem with hello. I've noticed that when I'm unlocking my phone it is often as I'm doing something else, walking somewhere, etc. and not even looking at my phone.

Still nice trick.

[cory1717]

Nice tip ! Mine works perfectly

[Deofol]

Great tip, that does seem to speed it up!

[darth furious]

thanks. Why doesn't MS have that written on the screen? It should say "looking for you..." and "look at the top" or put it in the manual. Maybe they will in future phones.

[Lyndon Sanche]

I have a feeling this is why the put the animated eye at the top of the screen, to attract your eyes attention.

[John M Beauchemin]

The part I dislike the most about it is I have to hold the phone up to my face, which is super unnatural, and so close that my vision goes blurry. I'd rather have a fingerprint scanner so I don't have to do anything unnatural to unlock my phone.

But I'll give it a shot once again with your tips, maybe I'll warm up to it.

[toddpart]

The part I dislike the most about it is I have to hold the phone up to my face, which is super unnatural, and so close that my vision goes blurry. I'd rather have a fingerprint scanner so I don't have to do anything unnatural to unlock my phone.

But I'll give it a shot once again with your tips, maybe I'll warm up to it.

Hope it helps...for me, I don't need hold it that close at all. I'm sitting at my desk right now, 950 laying on desk next to my keyboard, I can just tilt it up, push the power button, look at the logo and it unlocks. Phone is good 12-18 inches away from my face.

My BIGGEST pet peeve about this phone is the lack of 'double tap to wake.' Otherwise, love it. Good luck!

[John M Beauchemin]

My BIGGEST pet peeve about this phone is the lack of 'double tap to wake.' Otherwise, love it. Good luck!

Now that I've been using the phone as a phone for about a week and I've started to develop 'habits' on how to use it, yes, having to press the power button, and then swipe up, and then punch in my code to get into my phone is 1-2 too many steps, lol. The power button is in a weird spot for me, too, as it does not fall naturally under any of my fingers therefore I have to make a concerted effort to activate my phone. Double tap to wake, while a feature I'm not familiar with, does sound a lot nicer to me than having to hit the power button.

[RumoredNow]

My BIGGEST pet peeve about this phone is the lack of 'double tap to wake.'

I thought Daniel Rubino indicated in the AMA that DTtW should be coming with firmware updates.

[Skyway]

Funny that you mention this because my eyes go straight to the MS logo/camera every time I use Hello, without even thinking about it. I guess it just clicked in my brain that that's where I have to look. I've had nothing but a good experience with Hello, except in one area. Battery life. Try turning Hello off for a day and you'll see just how much longer your phone lasts. I guess that's why it's in beta, hopefully they'll fix it when it goes mainstream.

[Martin Zone]

I've had nothing but a good experience with Hello, except in one area. Battery life. Try turning Hello off for a day and you'll see just how much longer your phone lasts. I guess that's why it's in beta, hopefully they'll fix it when it goes mainstream.

Are you saying that the hello doing something in the background or continuously scanning? I guess if you have enabled "Hey Cortana", she should continuously listen and decode what's been said, but what would the hello do when not needed for login?

[pallentx]

I found the same thing about looking at the logo. I do find that I need to hold it closer to my face than I would normally hold it and in really bright sunlight its completely useless. In normal conditions it works pretty well. Hopefully, it improves as they keep working on it.

[Skyway]

Are you saying that the hello doing something in the background or continuously scanning? I guess if you have enabled "Hey Cortana", she should continuously listen and decode what's been said, but what would the hello do when not needed for login?

All I'm saying is that I've noticed better battery life with Hello turned off. I'm not going to guess what's going on under the hood because I haven't a clue.

[Adretheon]

Are you saying that the hello doing something in the background or continuously scanning? I guess if you have enabled "Hey Cortana", she should continuously listen and decode what's been said, but what would the hello do when not needed for login?

It's really just cause every time the phone is turned on its looking for you. So if your turning on your screen often to check notifications it can put a drain on it too. I always click my screen on for one reason or another and I've noticed a tad drain. However the battery is still pretty good even with it. Hey Cortana drains it more than Hello does, but again it's still noticible.It's really the one thing about Hello I dislike. Sometimes I just wanna check my action screen for what's on there, but Hello makes it a pain sometimes. Then when you plug in your phone it searches for your face again. I wish the Glance screen would come on when you plug your phone in instead of the screen turing fully on.

[John M Beauchemin]

I wish the Glance screen would come on when you plug your phone in instead of the screen turing fully on.

YES, a thousand times yes. It's especially annoying when you have the phone on a wireless charger. When it's fully charged, it disconnects and reconnects every couple of minutes, causing the screen to turn on and off for no reason.

[Krystianpants]

Hope it helps...for me, I don't need hold it that close at all. I'm sitting at my desk right now, 950 laying on desk next to my keyboard, I can just tilt it up, push the power button, look at the logo and it unlocks. Phone is good 12-18 inches away from my face.

My BIGGEST pet peeve about this phone is the lack of 'double tap to wake.' Otherwise, love it. Good luck!

Yah mine unlocks without having to go close. In fact, too close and it has more trouble unlocking than from further.

I'd like it if you could just say "hey cortana unlock" and it would scan.

[Paolo Cardelli]

No, this is not a click bait.

Yesterday I figured out how to unlock my 950 XL with Windows Hello iris recognition in 1 second (2 seconds Max), with 99% success rate.

That's how I did it, and some tricks to fine tune and optimize Windows Hello easily:

• Remove your Windows Hello configuration, Disable it. (this will erase all your previous calibrations, and it's a GOOD thing if you did it wrong in the first place)
• First calibrate Windows Hello inside a room, and not outside in bright sunlight. Don't wear glasses, and do not keep your phone too close. Just put in front of you like you would use it normally, and make sure your eyes are centered, and you're looking the upper side of phone like you would normally look for "Windows Hello is searching you" text on Lockscreen. Do NOT look straight to red light;
• Do the same thing above in: 1) Another room with different lighting (dimmer artificial lights), 2) In a completely dark room , 3) Outside with natural sunlight (but not under the direct sunlight on the phone);
• Then STOP keeping re-doing calibration with "Improve Windows Hello" again and again, maybe 15 times. The more you re-calibrate, the slower it will get.

That's it.
Now Windows Hello will recognize you 99% of the time, and will unlock almost instantly (1 to 2 seconds), and really makes Fingerprint scanner an old tech.

Try it yourselves, and let me know!

Cheers
-P

[Jayddo]

Awesome tip, gonna do that later. Thanks and cheers!

[tribexx]

Hello,

Sorry, it may be a grammar thing, but I don't understand your last bullet item:

• Then STOP keeping re-doing calibration with "Improve Windows Hello" again and again, maybe 15 times. The more you re-calibrate, the slower it will get.

What do you mean?

[dKp1977]

Hello,

Sorry, it may be a grammar thing, but I don't understand your last bullet item:

• Then STOP keeping re-doing calibration with "Improve Windows Hello" again and again, maybe 15 times. The more you re-calibrate, the slower it will get.

What do you mean?

What he means is that you should just follow his steps setting Windows Hello up and improving it and not try and improve it any further.

[Paolo Cardelli]

Correct (sorry for my grammar, I'm Italian ).

Just calibrate Windows Hello 4 times only like I suggested (in those different environments lighting), and don't do it again. You don't need to, and the more you continue to calibrate after that, the slower it gets to recognize you.

[DigitalZ]

I'll add to this a trick that has helped me a lot. As soon as you see that it's looking for you, open your eyes wide which exposes your iris's more. I get near 100% successful recognition when doing this.

[Paolo Cardelli]

I'll add to this a trick that has helped me a lot. As soon as you see that it's looking for you, open your eyes wide which exposes your iris's more. I get near 100% successful recognition when doing this.

Yes, that helps too, but is not so necessary (and it could make you look a bit psychopath in public )

[pdch]

I will be the first to admit that I was a little disappointed when I tried to use Window Hello on my new 950xl. It seemed that it would only work maybe one out of ten tries, so I would mostly just use the pin. I was bored one day, so decided to try to improve recognition and give it another try - and then I discovered what is literally directing people to go wrong - "Move Closer"

I noticed that when I had both of my eyes in the little window when trying to improve recognition, I would be prompted to move closer until only one eye was visible, then it would tell me it couldn't see me anymore. I also noticed that when it prompted me to move closer, but I ignored it, the progress bar would continue to progress without any problem.

So I decided to just pick a comfortable spot for myself, where I would normally want to hold the phone to unlock it. Absolutely ignoring EVERY "move closer" prompt - I re-ran the recognition procedure, and then did "improve recognition" four more times from about the same distance.

And now the biggest key, I now hold my phone at as close to the same distance as when I ran recognition procedure and when it says "move closer" I actually just open my eyes just a little wider. BAM! It now unlocks EVERY time!

Hope this helps others!