I banished messy fingerprint smudges by switching to Android's built-in touchless camera features
Android Police 2026-06-30 10:00:10
Context: The author, Jade Bryan Jardinico, a tech-savvy individual and feature author at Android Police, has found a solution to the common problem of fingerprint smudges on phone screens while taking photos. He utilizes Android's built-in touchless camera features, specifically on his Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, to take photos without touching the screen. This method has become essential for him, given that he takes over 1,000 photos and hundreds of videos with his phone.
Key Facts
- The author takes over 1,000 photos and hundreds of videos with his Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, making it his daily driver until he reached his Google Photos storage limit.
- The Google Pixel camera app has a built-in palm detection feature that allows users to start a three-second countdown timer by holding their palm towards the active camera frame, confirmed by the LED flash.
- The palm timer feature works on both front and rear cameras and with different lenses, but it may be slower and less accurate than Samsung's implementation, and it is not supported for videos.
- The author also uses Google Assistant, or Gemini, as an alternative to the palm timer, which can start a three-second countdown timer with voice commands, and can be extended to 10 seconds with specific prompts.
- On his Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7, the author can use voice commands like "cheese" or "smile" to take photos and "record video" to start recording, which he finds to be quicker and more foolproof than Google's implementation.