Windows Hello: A Quick Primer

As part of my quest to find the prefect Windows 10 tablet, I’ve had a chance to play with some Windows 10 features I’ve not really delved into previously. One of those is Windows Hello. If supported on your device, you’ll find Windows Hello in Widows Settings by clicking or tapping on Accounts and then choosing Sign-in options.

One of the things I really like about the iPad Pro I’m ditching is the TouchID sensor. This makes signing in with my fingerprint super easy and it’s very fast.

Microsoft supports fingerprint log-ins – many Windows 10 devices such as the Dell XPS 2-in-1 I recently tested and the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 I’m using at the moment have a fingerprint sensor.

Windows Hello is Microsoft’s full swing at biometric security. As well supporting fingerprints, Hello can use facial recognition, as long as your device has a suitable camera. It requires an Intel RealSense camera array that looks at your irises as well as your face. This is so it can’t be fooled by someone holding up a picture of your face.

I’ve been using Hello for a couple of weeks and am quite impressed. It has worked in differing lighting conditions and has only let me down a couple of times after dozens of log-ins.

If the facial recognition fails, I can enter a PIN.

With the Windows 10 devices I’ve tested, having the computer log in, without me doing anything other that powering it on is not only cool but also very convenient.

When I set my selection criteria out at the beginning of my journey, Windows Hello was not on my radar. But now, if I faced with a choice between a device that supports Hello and one that doesn’t it will be enough to win me over.


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