Fingerprint recognition to access your car is convenient, but to be honest also sounds a bit yesterday. Which is why reckon facial recognition could be better – as we mentioned here – not knowing that sensors needed for such a thing are actually being developed by Osram.

They’re most known for light bulbs, but that’s oversimplifying things. Not when the company are also able to develop biometric scanners for use in consumer electronics and automotive. Osram has the Synios SFH 4772S A01 iris scanner to start with, which is not unlike the tech used in smartphones and tablets for unlocking without a password. How it works is with a light source that illuminates the iris with infrared light before a camera captures the image of the iris. If the patterns match, the device is unlocked.

This is the basis for a similar biometric technology for facial recognition except that it uses a different Synios sensor by Osram. The company says that the hardware is approved for temperatures up to 125 deg Celsius and that will be available very soon – as in spring 2019.

Imagine that, someday a car that recognises the owner/driver by nothing more than just facial recognition and readies the car ready based on that person’s preference – seating, air-conditioning, music playlist, etc.