Android OS offers many ways of unlocking your device. Among the most popular are entering a pattern or PIN and face unlock. Although patterns and PINs can be pretty secure, there are still ways to improve upon them.
The Android kernel offers many functions that can be used even when the screen is powered off. Double-tap-to-wake is a common feature that can be found on many custom ROMs here at XDA. XDA Senior Member goutamniwas created quite an interesting method for screen unlocking using the tap2wake technology.
With Tap2Unlock, you can unlock your screen by entering a PIN code while your screen is off. This module splits the screen into four squares. Pressing the wrong pattern will light up the screen but disable touch, so the person who enters will not be able to use the phone. Entering the correct pattern will fully unlock the device.
This kernel feature can work with most currently available kernels built from source. The developer was kind enough to provide necessary patches that need to be cherry picked in order to make it work.
If you are a kernel developer, you can consider adding this to your project. If you’re just a user, you can also request the feature to be implement by your favorite kernel developer. You can learn more by visiting the Tap2unlock – a new tap2wake feature with pattern forum thread.
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