It took only two short months before the first Android smartphone manufacturer introduced its own face recognition technology copying Apple’s Face ID. At the Honor V10 (Honor 9 Pro at Home) conference , Huawei has unveiled a facial recognition module for smartphones that can accurately recognize a user and animate emojis.

This technology, which has clearly not yet official name, is based more strongly than that used by Apple with its module True Depth camera that animates Face ID on iPhone X . Huawei has indeed unveiled a module placed on the front of a smartphone that includes an infrared camera and a 3D scanner with structured light. This module can then scan the face of a user in 3D to create a model of 300,000 points in about 10 seconds. With its True Depth technology, Apple scans the user’s face with “only” 30,000 points.

Huawei’s promises are tempting. Her module would be able to recognize the face of the user in less than 400 milliseconds. Huawei intends to use it to unlock the smartphone, of course, but also to make purchases – probably through WeChat – and animate emojis.

The next-gen animoji will have an animated language

During the presentation, a demonstrator showed a panda able to reproduce his facial expressions. Better, and unlike Apple, this animoji way Huawei is able to pull the tongue and tracker. Useless and therefore indispensable. There remains one crucial question that Huawei has not yet communicated: software integration. Apple, which has full control of iOS, is able to optimize its facial recognition technology to easily integrate it into its mobile OS. On Android, facial recognition is not yet taken into account by the OS. Using this facial recognition technology will therefore require third-party applications, which are likely to be slower than if the functionality were integrated into the OS.

Huawei has not yet integrated its facial recognition technology to any of its smartphones. Its technology will not be present on the Honor V10. But it’s a safe bet that it will be found on its next flagships, namely the Huawei P11 or Huawei Mate 11. It will not be until the middle of next year, at least.