Samsung Galaxy S21 Series With One UI 3.1 Could Have Bixby Voice Unlock Feature: Report

Samsung Galaxy S21 series will have Bixby voice as a biometric method to unlock the phone, according to a report. The smartphone series is expected to be launched with One UI 3.1 based on Android 11, which will reportedly have the new unlock method as one of the features. One UI 3.1 will allow you to select Bixby voice unlock from the phone's lock screen settings, stated the report. Samsung Galaxy S21 series is expected to debut in January next year and include three models: Samsung Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+, and Galaxy S21 Ultra.

One UI 3.1 will allow Bixby voice to unlock the Samsung Galaxy S21 smartphone with voice recognition, according to a report by SamMobile. But this won't be a feature exclusive to Samsung Galaxy S21 series; One UI 3.1 will eventually release for other Galaxy devices as well. Until that happens, however, only Samsung Galaxy S21 series will have the ability to unlock using Bixby voice.

It appears that the feature will work similar to how PIN, fingerprint, and face unlock works, but the specifics of this new unlock feature are yet to surface. Samsung will likely also take extra steps to make it a secure way of unlocking the phone in case someone tries to use a voice recording to unlock the phone, but this hasn't been explained yet.

For a brief period, Google also allowed its users to unlock their smartphones using Assistant, but soon got rid of the ability.

Samsung Galaxy S21 series is expected to launch with Android 11 based One UI 3.1 out of the box. Samsung is currently testing One UI 3.0 in beta on Samsung smartphones and it could start rolling out to more devices by this month or next.

As per a report, the South Korean tech giant is preparing to launch the Samsung Galaxy S21 in late January next year. The early launch could be aimed at gaining market share of premium smartphones from Huawei and fending off competition from Apple.

Is this the end of the Samsung Galaxy Note series as we know it? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.