This is how you get Face ID with sunglasses

Most Swedish iPhone users avoided a major problem with the phone during the first year of the Covid pandemic. In many other countries, everyone was required to wear a face mask in public places such as shops and on public transportation. Until March of this year, the mask with Face ID did not work. Apple has now solved this problem with a setup that allows Face ID to handle the rest of the face – ironically at the same time that most countries have dropped mouthguard requirements.

However, what we haven’t survived is a nearby problem that arises every summer: the difficulty of unlocking the phone with sunglasses.

Face ID has problems with sunglasses in particular, but not regular glasses, since the system usually tries to verify that you’re looking at the phone screen. ie: Are the eyes open and the gaze directed at the camera? Dark sunglasses can prevent the normal camera from “seeing” the eyes, so Face ID can’t tell if you’re looking, causing the phone to stay locked.

So the solution would be to turn off this security feature and allow Face ID to unlock the phone even when you are not looking at it. The system that recognizes your face shape using infrared light doesn’t see the difference between sunglasses and eyeglasses.

to open Settings -> Face ID & Passcode. Scroll down a bit and turn off Ask attention to Face ID. You get a warning that it makes the phone less secure, because someone else could unlock your phone while you’re sleeping, for example.

Whether this is a risk you can live with is up to you. You can always “emergency phone lock” by holding down the side button and one of the volume buttons for a few seconds, then Face ID turns off until you enter the passcode.