The Google Pixel 6a comes with an on-screen fingerprint sensor. If you are having problems trying to get this sensor to detect your fingerprint correctly, then you can take a look at troubleshooting article from Seeking Tech.
1. To start off, make sure that your finger is both clean and dry before you put in on the on-screen fingerprint sensor of the Pixel 6a.
2. You should also make sure that the screen of your smartphone is clean as well. Otherwise, the sensor may have problems trying to scan your print.
To see how you can properly clean the Google Pixel 6a, you can take a look at this guide.
3. If you see a message that says to “hold a little longer,” then make sure you aren’t taking your finger off of the on-screen sensor too early.
4. If your smartphone gets wet, then the sensor could end up being inaccurate. In this case, we recommend that you let your Pixel 6a dry up at room temperature before trying to unlock it with your bio-metrics.
To find out more information about how you can properly dry this phone, you can check out this post.
5. If you are trying to use the fingerprint scanner in an overly bright environment, such as in direct sunlight, then the brightness may interfere with the detection.
In this scenario, you can try to move to a darker environment to see if you can get the fingerprint sensor to work properly.
6. You can also try enabling the lift to wake or tap to wake feature, which should make the sensor show up quicker when compared to pressing the power button to turn on the locked screen.
To see how you can enable these features, you can take a look at this article.
7. If you are using a screen protector, then you should make sure that it is fully compatible with the touch features of the Google Pixel 6a. If you don’t believe that the protect film is compatible, then you might want to remove it from the touch screen of your phone.
8. You can also try increasing the touch screen sensitivity by taking the following steps:
- Open the Settings App on your Pixel 6a.
- Inside of Settings, you to select Display from the list of available options.
- After you get to the Display menu, you then need to make sure that the “Increase touch sensitivity” setting is turned on.
9. If you fingerprint has a new scar or is visibly damaged in some way, then the sensor may not be able to recognize it. In this case, you can either use a different fingerprint or re-registered the current one you are using.
In order to do so, you need to do the following:
- On your Google Pixel 6a, open the Settings App.
- From the Settings App, you need to select Security.
- In Security, select Fingerprint Unlock.
- Enter your PIN in order to continue.
- Once you get to the Fingerprint Unlock menu, select the garbage can icon next to the fingerprint that you want to delete.
- You then need to select the Delete option to confirm your choice.
- Next, you need to select the “Add fingerprint” option from the Fingerprint Unlock menu.
- In the “Touch & hold the fingerprint sensor” menu, follow the on-screen instructions in order to re-register your print.
10. You may also want to add more profiles to the same fingerprint in order to increase the likelihood of the senor correctly detecting your bio-metrics.
To do so, you need to take the following steps:
- Open the Settings App and the head over to Security.
- Select Fingerprint Unlock and the input your PIN code.
- Select the “Add fingerprint” option in the Fingerprint Unlock menu.
- Follow the instructions in the “Touch & hold the fingerprint sensor” menu. Make sure you are using the same finger as before.
- Once you are done, select the “Add another” option located on the bottom left corner.
- Register the same finger again. This time try to apply different pressure to the screen as well as use different angles than you did in the previous profile.
- Keep adding more profiles until you reach the maximum number allowed, which should be 5.
The fingerprint scanner should now be more accurate as it has a database of 5 fingerprint profiles that you registered to the same finger.