Qualcomm announces fingerprint technology that could make home buttons obsolete

Qualcomm on Tuesday announced their second generation of ultrasonic fingerprint sensing technology which can scan through glass and metal surfaces. The announcement was made by the company at the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Shanghai.

The technology is however not all the same with separate variants designed to be compatible with different chipset variants. “Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensors for Glass and Metal are designed to be compatible with the recently announced Snapdragon 660 and 630 Mobile Platforms, and Qualcomm Fingerprint Sensors for Display, Glass and Metal are designed to be compatible with future Snapdragon Mobile Platforms and non-Snapdragon platforms,” said the company in a press release.

While this isn’t the company’s first iteration of the ultrasonic technology, Qualcomm claims that the new biometric scanners capture the shape of a fingertip through water, sweat, and debris. Qualcomm also claims better authentication with the sensors being capable of detecting the user’s heart beat and blood flow.

The company has tied up with Chinese smartphone maker   Vivo to demonstrate two variants of the new sensors, for Display and Metal using modified versions of the Vivo XPlay 6.

The company mentioned that the sensors for glass and metal would be available to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) this month and are expected to be used in commercial devices in the first half of 2018. The variant for display, however, will be available for OEM’s to evaluate only in the final quarter of 2017.