Is Windows Hello Camera/Face Kind of Dumb?

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Paladin

Paladin

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  • #1
    So, my wife has an Asus laptop from a few years back that has an IR and web camera integrated and it has Windows Hello enabled so she or I can simply turn it on/wake it from sleep and it 'looks' at who is standing in front of it and logs them in with minimal fuss.

    Our webcam for the home desktop died so I brought home my one I bought for the office and ordered a new one for my office desktop and figured I might as well get one that can do Windows Hello Face. Why not?

    So I got a nice little Japanese webcam with IR function and plugged it into my office desktop and registered my face and it works just fine when I test it. Logs me right in without issue so I can just click and it turns the monitor on and logs me in...

    Sort of.

    See, I have a Microsoft Account, with a PIN on this desktop machine and this is where I can't understand what they are trying to do here. It always wants the PIN instead of the face login. I sit in front of the camera, hit a key or mouse button and the monitor comes on and the camera flashes the little IR lamp indicator light like it is going to look at my face and then it asks for a PIN login.

    :unsure:

    I could type in my PIN but I have the camera, I'm sitting right here. Why would the face login not work? I can click the little link on the login screen that says 'Sign-in Options' and then click the face icon and the camera looks at me and welcomes me in and I can use my computer without issue. So the face ID works but Windows just doesn't really try it. It acts, for just a second, like it is going to and then it asks for a PIN.

    Well, that's a bit annoying, but fine, I can click it and click the other thing and get in... fine.

    But it's worse. If I lock the computer (Win-L), the computer locks... and the camera immediately starts looking for me and logs me right back in unless I turn away from the computer or duck/stand up so it can't see me. o_O

    So it won't log me in easily when I want it to (when I come back to the computer and want to log in) but when I tell it to lock the computer, it immediately tries to unlock it if my face is in view at all.

    Is it just me or is that backward?!

    I've already tried completely deleting my PIN from the computer and it simply switches to asking for my Microsoft Account password and continues the same behavior of not using the camera/face login when you would want it to and using the camera when you don't want it to do so.

    Am I dumb or is this the opposite of how it should work?

    Is there a setting or option to always prefer to try the camera first or whatever? I've googled and found nothing reliable to address this kind of thing so I feel like it is not a super common problem or maybe I am just doing something weird that no one else does.
     
    Paladin

    Paladin

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  • #2
    Hehe, well... I may have sort of found a work around for the first problem.

    Based on this I set the option to 'Never' require a sign in after a screen timeout. Which is idiotic. So I addressed that issue by installing a screensaver and setting that to go to the login screen when it is dismissed.

    I set the screen saver for 5 minutes, the screen 'timeout' (power off for the monitors) to 10 minutes and then tested.

    The screensaver comes on and when I hit a key or mouse button to resume from the screensaver, sure enough, the camera comes on and my face is my passport, verify me, and I am in.

    It still stupidly tries to log me right back in if I lock the screen intentionally so I will just have to get used to turning away as I lock it up. Silly design. It should obviously have at least a 30 second (and optionally longer) delay before trying to log you back in after an intentional lock like that.
     
    Kyuu

    Kyuu

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  • #3
    That's strange. I have Windows Hello enabled on my work laptop, and if I log out it does not log me back in automatically even I'm still there looking at the camera. The camera will immediately recognize me, but it will say "dismiss the lock screen to log back into Windows". If I don't dismiss the lock screen and stop looking at the camera, it will go back to the "Looking for you..." status.

    Have you tried altering this setting:

    Screenshot 2024-04-12 162854.png
     
    Paladin

    Paladin

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  • #4
    Yeah, I saw that one and enabled it thinking when I do want to log in, I want it to bypass the lock screen but... maybe they mean automatically dismiss it when you don't want to, not when you obviously do want to. :rolleyes:

    :biggreen:

    I'll have to play with it and see if I can get it to work the way I would expect. Stuff like this is where Apple makes their money. They test with actual users and the developers adapt to the user expectations instead of the other way around, it seems.
     
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    Entegy

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  • #5
    I do not have any issues with the default login method sticking to the cam over PIN. However, all my devices have a Windows Hello camera integrated into them since they are laptops. Ya know, like Apple: integration. Otherwise, dumb sentence. 🙄

    My guess is that that cam cannot wake up fast enough for the lock screen to register that it's there. Modern monitors also take forever and half to wake up, so my guess at the sequence of events is: Computer wakes up/comes back from idle > lock screen scans for devices that are authenticated for unlock, finds nothing so it defaults to PIN > camera finally wakes up and gets added to list of login options > monitor finally wakes up. To the computer, it's a lazy device that isn't back in action in time to be the default login method when the lock screen is ready. To you, it looks like the computer woke up half-ready because the monitor took so long to kick in.

    Go into Device Manager (right-click Start button) and open the properties of your camera. See if there's Power Management options and disable the option "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power". This could help in making the camera more reactive at return from idle/wake.
     
    Paladin

    Paladin

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  • #6
    Yeah I think the power saving feature might be a thing but you can literally see the camera start to do its thing before it switches to the PIN input. I guess it might maybe be that the camera is powering on and just looks like it is doing an IR scan so I will try that power/sleep thing and see if it makes a difference.

    Don't worry about my Apple jibe. It was mostly tongue in cheek though I do wish Microsoft would do more to tighten standards for hardware and windows integration and stuff. Apple has the luxury of not having to support anything but their own gear but I still think Microsoft could tighten that issue up a bit in many cases.
     
    Paladin

    Paladin

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  • #7
    Well power saving changes does not seem to have done the job, no change in behavior there. The camera itself has no option to disable power saving features, but the various USB hubs etc. do so I disabled those and I disabled the other options to put peripherals to sleep. All that did was make my USB flash drives reconnect once.

    Basically if I use a screensaver, as long as I let it go to screensaver and then come back and hit a key to dismiss the screensaver, it uses Windows Hello via the camera without delay/issue and I get right in.

    If I am away long enough that the screens are turned off (camera is connected directly to a USB port on the computer, not via the monitors), then when I come back, it defaults to the PIN entry method and I have to tell it to use the face login, which again works fine. Just an annoying bit of extra clicking.

    If I intentionally lock the PC, it immediately tries to look for my face after locking and will unlock if I am in the frame of the camera. If I duck away quickly enough, it gives up on seeing me and then goes to wanting the PIN again.

    It all feels like it is intended to work this way but this is really the opposite of how it should work.

    It should let me lock the PC or log out and it should have at least a 5 or 10 second delay and then be ready for a face ID again. If no face is found, it should just sit and wait until one shows up. If it then fails face ID it should go to the PIN or let you choose another user and PIN/password if you want. Basically if you have any kind of biometric (face/fingerprint) it should always try those as first option unless it has just done it and had no input. If it has had biometric input and failed to match, then it should go to PIN after a couple of tries. It should never go to PIN/Password as the first option unless the user has specifically configured it to do so.
     
    Paladin

    Paladin

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  • #9
    Yeah, that is kind of what I am wondering... though I would not be surprised if most 'embedded' cameras are still just a USB device on an internal header or something. The drivers might be more specialized but I would think that a Hello compatible camera would work properly without this kind of silliness.

    I should play with my wife's laptop more to see if it has the same kind of issues with locking (trying to unlock immediately) vs. screensaver vs. power saving etc.

    It's a weird problem though I mostly have it managed to a usable state by just having the screen saver come on quickly to avoid the need to manually lock the PC and having it run the screen saver for a long time. It's down to me only having to do the 'No, I don't want to use a PIN, try the camera' click dance once a day or so when I come back after a night away or whatever.
     
    Paladin

    Paladin

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  • #12
    Yeah I do, I figured that is desirable in most cases. If I turn that off, it still tries to log me back in immediately when I lock the computer.

    I may just have to live with this silliness for the time being. Eventually I will do another fresh install and see how it works out of the box. This install is only like 3 months old or so, I would think it is not that messed up but I do end up using a variety of different VPN clients (Cisco, Sonicwall, Fortigate, etc.) at different times so I wonder if something about the login process might be a bit tweaked from those or something similar.
     
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