According to the changelog, Google hasn’t changed anything on the fingerprint sensor of the older Pixel smartphones with the latest March update. The stability and performance updates only affect Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.
Nevertheless, there are more and more people complaining about poor performance. Pixel 5 and older models that still have the classic fingerprint sensor on the back of the case are affected.
In a Reddit thread that is around 24 hours old, a user has already received plenty of encouragement. 96 percent of the more than 200 people agree with his observations that the fingerprint sensor has shown poorer performance since the March system update. There is also a lot of agreement in the comments on the post from other users who have had to make similar observations with Pixel 5, Pixel 4a and Co.
Fingerprint sensor creates new problems for pixel users: cause still unknown, no report from Google
Similar reports can now be found directly in the Google forum. Complaints go back to the Pixel 3a. Some believe that the cause lies in other features, such as the always-on display. In particular, some users should only wake up the device with a very long delay when unlocking it with their fingerprint. Which actually sounds like it’s more of a different bug that’s causing the delays here. Not the sensor itself.
And some joke that Google is intentionally bringing the slow performance of the Pixel 6 sensors to older devices. That’s funny, but of course rather nonsense. Now we have to wait and see whether the problems occur on a larger scale and whether Google has to comment directly on them. It is sometimes not bad that the Pixel 6 smartphones only receive new updates with a delay.