Facial Recognition to start car is malfunctioning

[OCheatham]

I have a 2024 Lucid Air Touring

When my wife and I picked up our car in August we were walked through the facial recognition features. The instructor demonstrated how the car will not go into drive without first identifying the driver via facial recognition. After adding our profiles and setting up facial recognition were we then able to put the car into drive. He even let us know that if someone is borrowing our car or if we get our car serviced, to provide the person with our lucid card because the key fob will not let them drive the car without a profile + facial recognition. Both my wife and I recall this conversation. Within the first month after pick up, a few friends have come over to check out our car, with my myself or my wife there with our key fobs, and they were unable to put the car into drive.

Since the UX 2.4 update this feature has not worked correctly. Recently, two other friends that came to check out the car were both able to put the car into drive. I notified customer service and they were unaware of the facial recognition feature to identify the driver before being able to drive. Although they were unaware, they scheduled an appointment for a service technician to come to my house and fix the issue. Yesterday the technician came and told me that this facial recognition feature was never a feature. He contacted his supervisor and was also told that this was never a feature. He ran the diagnostics and left saying that he'll look into it but from his knowledge it was never a feature.

Am I crazy??? I feel like I'm being gaslit here lol. Has anyone experienced this? Do you remember having to use facial recognition to put your into drive? Is it still working for you? Please let me know because I'd like to get my car fixed as it is a great way to prevent inner city thefts.

 

[joec]

Facial recognition has never been required to drive.

 

[OCheatham]

One of my friends that tested the car is the director at a testing and certification facility. Their clients are Tesla and Rivian. She tested many of the features of my car, including this feature, and the car wouldn't go into drive for her. Are you saying that my car was malfunctioning when I initially received it? And that the representative at Lucid who handed over our car was wrong?

 

[Dark_Energy]

I was also under the impression that the facial recognition was part of the vehicle anti-theft feature. But after reading several threads about it, I was wrong and facial recognition was only used to set up the driver user profile and maybe used for Distracted Driver feature. What I've realized in the short time I've owned the car is that some of the people I've been in contact with at Lucid are very knowledgeable about the car and others know very little about the car.

 

[Unmutual]

I've never enabled facial recognition and my 15K miles without it tells me that it has nothing to do with putting the car into drive ....

 

[joec]

One of my friends that tested the car is the director at a testing and certification facility. Their clients are Tesla and Rivian. She tested many of the features of my car, including this feature, and the car wouldn't go into drive for her. Are you saying that my car was malfunctioning when I initially received it? And that the representative at Lucid who handed over our car was wrong?

Yes. I am saying the rep was absolutely wrong.

You can set up the car without setting up facial recognition. You can also position the steering wheel such that the camera behind it can't even see you. Trust me, this will not in any way prevent the car from being put into gear.

The only thing that stops the car from being put into gear is if it detects there is no key fob or linked mobile phone present.

 

[joec]

A lot of folks don't quite understand the tech involved in facial recognition, so I feel it's important to point this out. Your iPhone doesn't use a simple camera to detect your face. It uses a combination of a laser dot projector, an infrared camera, and a flood illuminator. You can do basic facial recognition with that tiny little camera in the Lucid, but I wouldn't trust my car's security with it. It's good enough to maybe sometimes guess the correct seating profile, but that's about as far as it's worth.

 

[joec]

The main thing that camera is used for is detecting whether or not you are looking at the road. Eventually, that will substitute while using HA for holding onto the wheel. But even that will be far from perfect, and you'll still get the occasional warning that you aren't looking at the road even when you are if the steering wheel isn't positioned quite right.

 

[borski]

A lot of folks don't quite understand the tech involved in facial recognition, so I feel it's important to point this out. Your iPhone doesn't use a simple camera to detect your face. It uses a combination of a laser dot projector, an infrared camera, and a flood illuminator. You can do basic facial recognition with that tiny little camera in the Lucid, but I wouldn't trust my car's security with it. It's good enough to maybe sometimes guess the correct seating profile, but that's about as far as it's worth.

 

[xponents]

A lot of folks don't quite understand the tech involved in facial recognition, so I feel it's important to point this out. Your iPhone doesn't use a simple camera to detect your face. It uses a combination of a laser dot projector, an infrared camera, and a flood illuminator. You can do basic facial recognition with that tiny little camera in the Lucid, but I wouldn't trust my car's security with it. It's good enough to maybe sometimes guess the correct seating profile, but that's about as far as it's worth.

(Also, if you have a dynamic island iPhone, this can be seen easily: Hold it up to the sun to more easily see the "physical" pill. The larger pill houses most of the face-id tech, while the small "hole-punch" is the camera).

 

[Marco]

I was never able to activate Face ID on my Air.
But it was also never needed.

 

[Halodde]

The main thing that camera is used for is detecting whether or not you are looking at the road. Eventually, that will substitute while using HA for holding onto the wheel. But even that will be far from perfect, and you'll still get the occasional warning that you aren't looking at the road even when you are if the steering wheel isn't positioned quite right.

I don't have it set up. But isn't the car also able to adjust the driver's seat and outside mirrors based on who it detects the driver to be? Or is that solely based on the key that was used to unlock the car?

Again, I don't have the facial recognition or multiple profiles setup on my car. I genuinely don't know how either works.

 

[joec]

I don't have it set up. But isn't the car also able to adjust the driver's seat and outside mirrors based on who it detects the driver to be? Or is that solely based on the key that was used to unlock the car?

Again, I don't have the facial recognition or multiple profiles setup on my car. I genuinely don't know how either works.

I'm fairly sure it's going off the profile associated with the key, not your face. They could probably associate your face with a profile, but even that would likely not be very reliable.

 

[borski]

I'm fairly sure it's going off the profile associated with the key, not your face. They could probably associate your face with a profile, but even that would likely not be very reliable.

They can and do, and it isn’t.

But facial recognition *is* associated with a profile (up to two likenesses per profile), and it has switched profiles for me before, but I don’t know what set of circumstances triggers it.