Dry skin could be causing fingerprint recognition issues on your smartphones

Fingerprint sensors have become the primary biometric authentication method on most modern smartphones. While highly convenient compared to typing passwords or patterns, the technology can sometimes run into issues – with one common culprit being dry skin on your fingers.

If you’ve been having trouble getting your smartphone to reliably recognize your fingerprint lately, it’s worth considering whether dry skin could be the reason behind those maddening “fingerprint not recognized” errors.

Optical fingerprint sensors that most smartphones come quipped with these days work by using light to create a digital image of the ridges and valleys that make up your unique fingerprint pattern. For the sensor to read your print accurately, it relies on accessing the outer layer of skin cells and residue on your fingertips.

When your fingers are too dry, that outermost layer of skin can become loose, flaky or cracked, essentially distorting the ridges that make up your fingerprint pattern. This can prevent the sensor from getting a clear read. That said, the dry skin could also affect capacitive and ultrasonic sensors, especially if the condition is severe. In case you want to learn more about how optical fingerprint scanners work, LTT has a great video explaining the process.

The dry skin fingerprint issue seems to be a persistent one, according to recent complaints across Reddit and other community forums. Notably, fingerprint recognition issues affect devices from all manufactures, some more than others.

One user wrote, “The sensor has a difficult time reading your fingerprint if your hands are dry. You could also just breathe on your fingertips. The moisture from your breath will help. Sticking dirty fingers in your mouth is something that should be avoided, lol.” Another remarked, “I just use the oils from my face lol. It works every time.”

Similarly, many others have also confirmed that keeping their hands (fingers) moisturized eliminated the fingerprint recognition problems for the most part. Of course, there are several other factors that can hamper the ability of the sensor to recognize your fingerprint. However, unless there’s a hardware defect or software glitch, dry skin definitely plays an important role too.

In its support documentation, Samsung directly acknowledges the problem, advising users to “Apply moisturizing lotion to your hands regularly, especially during dry seasons, as dry hands may cause fingerprint sensor recognition issues.”

Even Google notes that “if you have excessively dry fingers, moisturize before scanning your fingerprint.” In fact, Google even clearly mentions this in its “unlock your Pixel phone with your fingerprint” video guide at around the 1:37 mark:

So it’s no secret that dry skin could be causing fingerprint recognition issues on your smartphone. Luckily, dealing with this problem is fairly easy, at least in most cases.

Simply moisturizing your hands and fingers using a standard hand lotion or cream can help restore that top layer of skin and residue needed for optimal fingerprint scanning.

Some additional tips that may help:

• Use a thicker, oil-based moisturizer like ones containing shea butter.
• Exfoliate hands regularly to remove dry, flaky skin.
• Run fingers under warm water for 10-15 seconds before trying to unlock.
• Re-register fingerprints periodically if they start becoming unreliable.
• For extra security, register the same finger 2-3 times during setup.

Look, if you have a severe skin condition, it’s best to visit a dermatologist rather than taking advice from the internet. So consider the tips above as just basic advice. While not the most groundbreaking issue, dry skin can certainly be the frustrating source of fingerprint woes. A little moisture may be all it takes to get your phone unlocking smoothly again.