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Help Smart stay feature not working

I just got an update to version 4.04 of Android, and after upgrading thought I'd check if Smart Stay functionality is any better, and testing it at my desk, it seems to be working a lot better now.

Maybe just a coincidence, but the stability features might have improved this feature a little.
 
I have found that it works but not well enough to be useful. For example, if you hold your phone at a low natural angle in an office environment, the fluro lights will be right behind your head at almost every angle, enought to stop it from working. To make it work well you have to hold it up higher (head height or just below), so you look like an idot searching for an extra bar of signal.

Basically if you take a photo of yourself with the front facing camera you will see why it struggles, the part of the image with your face will be washed out in colour because of the lens flare/bloom effect the bright light has.

I hope they improve the feature as it was a huge selling point of the phone for me. Really dissapointed that it doesn't work 80% of the time due to environment/lighting.
 
For some reason Tapatalk is quoting an entirely different post when I reply here. This is a response to "ubastars":

There's not really a lot they can do; if the camera can't see you, it can't see you.
 
All I can say is, a major release feature that only works 20% of the time isn't really a feature so much as it is a bloody good idea that didn't quite work out this time.

It was pretty much a coin toss for me between the One X and the SIII and sadly it was the smart stay feature that swayed my decision. Perhaps one day there will be kinect-esque tech that will do this properly. Until then or some samsung improvement on the feature, not particularly happy with it.
 
ubastars said:
All I can say is, a major release feature that only works 20% of the time isn't really a feature so much as it is a bloody good idea that didn't quite work out this time.

It was pretty much a coin toss for me between the One X and the SIII and sadly it was the smart stay feature that swayed my decision. Perhaps one day there will be kinect-esque tech that will do this properly. Until then or some samsung improvement on the feature, not particularly happy with it.
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It works 99% of the time for me so long as there's adequate lighting!

I'd take your phone back and get it swapped if its that bad!
 
Funny you should say that. The telco who I signed up with on contract for the phone never checked my home or work location for signal and data strenght. When I was seeking support for email issues they said the coverage was very poor and was likley the cause, long story short the phone is going back anyhow.

I really do hope the next one I get works well on this feature but I will be sure to report the outcome here.
 
ok..i had the same problem. i went to samsung chat support and was told to a soft reset. it didnt work. so i contacted them again and was told the same thing. and this time it worked. to do a soft reset...you power off. then remove the battery. they say 30 seconds but i think i left mine out for a min or 2. put battery back in and power up. it worked. it now has smart stay working 100% of the time. where as before it wasnt working at all. hope this helps you guys.
 
This works reliably for me but I did find that you have to have the phone roughly parallel to your face. If you are at an angle, I think it has a hard time finding your eyes.

If you enable the face unlock feature, you'll begin to get an idea of where it expects to see a face in the front camera view. I imagine some code is shared between the two features, and getting your face in that general location helps Smart Stay work better.
 
I can report after the battery died for a while (guessing the same effect as a hard reset) it was working much better. I also have a new handset now (blue) which has never had the issue. I can say with it working more often than not I am now happy with the feature.
 
hi

I have recently bought a s3 and have problems with smart stay feature...whenever I m reading something the feature is not able to detect my eyes... screen goes dim and shuts down even though I was still reading... I don't wear any glasses and m sitting in a well lit room... it is able to detect sometimes but most of the time it shuts down! I have watched a few videos Nd tried everything but the problem still appears! any advice????
 
it works now after watching the video... it doesnt track your eyeballs...but your face

so if face detection works on the camera smart stay should stay on...
 
Evo 5oh said:
it works now after watching the video... it doesnt track your eyeballs...but your face

so if face detection works on the camera smart stay should stay on...
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I can confirm this, if you like to stroke your beard and it cannot see your mouth, face detection will fail and it will not work... so i guess if you had an epic facebush you would be out of luck too.
 
yesterday the eyeball was there, not sure how well it worked.

Today there is no eyeball until I set if down beside me and it kept the screen on while pointing over my head.

Should I be creeped out?
 
adesweb said:
Hi

Just got my S3 yesterday but having problems with the Smart Stay feature. I have turned it on in the settings but I can only get the eye icon appearing intermittently and only for a split second when it does. Can anyone else get better reliability of this feature?

Very reluctant to send back as I don't think the handset is faulty. The front camera works fine.
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the reason is the distance between your face and s3.increase the distance and you ll see it works.
 
The problem is that smart stay only works when you are looking directly at the screen on an even keel. Tip the phone at any angle, and you'll time out. Most people look at their phone on an angle, so a flawed feature IMO
 
Hi guys,

I've just bumped into your forum when i've searched about this option through google..

Anyways, as for the smart stay, it didn't work well with me neither!

But i've searched for a video, which seemed to work perfectly after it, i wear glasses too..

I can't post a video since it's my first post over here..

You might want to have your settings set on 15 seconds instead of 30 seconds so you can do it in a faster period of time..

Keep on mind it won't work in dark places..

Othman
 
Hi all,

I searched for this problem yesterday and found you talking about it.
yesterday I tried all the suggested solutions about the light conditions and the face distance to the screen but always the screen turned off after the screen timeout timer expire. i had the timer set to 15 seconds for the battery sake.

Today it's FIXED for me by Uninstalling the GoSMS application which has also in its settings the 'screen timeout', this cause the conflict with the smart stay feature of the phone.
 
This feature is worthless. It doesn't work inside or outside in bright sunlight staring at the phone a foot away or arms length.
 
Mine works intermittently. I have noticed the eye pops up every 10 seconds or so just for a second. I'm assuming that's when it's "looking" to see if I am also looking at it.

But just the other day, I was staring right at the screen and it turned off on me.
 
ubastars said:
I have found that it works but not well enough to be useful. For example, if you hold your phone at a low natural angle in an office environment, the fluro lights will be right behind your head at almost every angle, enought to stop it from working. To make it work well you have to hold it up higher (head height or just below), so you look like an idot searching for an extra bar of signal.

Basically if you take a photo of yourself with the front facing camera you will see why it struggles, the part of the image with your face will be washed out in colour because of the lens flare/bloom effect the bright light has.

I hope they improve the feature as it was a huge selling point of the phone for me. Really dissapointed that it doesn't work 80% of the time due to environment/lighting.
Click to expand...

Ha! Now I know why it won't work in my office. I tried what you suggested and it worked, but yeah, I look like a goof holding my phone that high. LOL!!!
 
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