Digital Persona 88003-001U.are.u 4500 Reader 70" Cable

I am writing a review for this device because finding a fingerprint reader that works, out of the box, with Ubuntu is not easy. I tested some other devices and they did not work well. I am giving five stars because the device worked when connected with no issues. I plugged it in and it worked, which is not typical for Linux. The vendor does offer drivers for Linux if needed, but I did not have to install them. I think the drivers are more for developers working with this device. For users who simply want the convenience of fingerprint unlock for Ubuntu, this works well.Note that my five star for the device should not be misconstrued for a five star experience on Linux. By design Linux is more secure and not going to allow as much flexibility as Windows does where you can pretty much use a fingerprint in place of a password. Apple has also put more design time in to make fingerprint reader more functional, although users of Mac will see some similarities when using Linux.By design you cannot use fingerprint reader to decrypt a disk. If you set up your disk with encryption, know that when you power on or reboot, you will need to enter your password to decrypt. While you can use fingerprint to login you will find that immediately after logging in you will be prompted to enter your password for your keyring. This is again, by design, or at least the way Ubuntu works. What I'm saying is its not a bug. Where Apple seems to have done the work to use fingerprint for keyring, Ubuntu has not. Since it is open source, perhaps someone will tackle this in the future, but for now keyring requires a password. There are work arounds like setting the keyring to use a blank password, but this is not recommended. Essentially, the fingerprint can be used to unlock your screen, and it can be used in place of a password for sudo, which is very convenient. Third-party products like 1Password will also use fingerprint for unlock, but just like the built in keyring, the initial login after a reboot requires you to enter the password the first time you open it.I call this out because this reader is not cheap, so the user needs to determine if the convenience is worth the price. I can tell you that quality wise this appears to be a solid device that is made well. It has metal in the construction, feels solid, and has weight to it. So if you want the convenience, and the price is not an issue for you, then it can make working with an Ubuntu desktop a bit easier. I was very pleased that it worked right out of the box with no additional drivers needed. I am currently running Ubuntu 21.04 with GNOME 3.38.5.

These fingerprint readers are great, being incredibly accurate, solidly built, and including a good 6 ft or more USB cable. Problem is, you will spend hours searching the web for drivers for this fingerprint reader. If you choose to use it with Windows 10 Hello, as I did, you will need a specific Windows Hello Driver for this device. Those drivers will also need to be installed through Windows Update. It's somewhat annoying, but these were never really designed for some home consumers. These are more designed for business applications. Despite that, once you install a driver, it works great. After installing the Windows Hello Drivers, I added two fingerprints on my right hand, then restarted my PC and attempted to login. The moment I got to the login screen, the fingerprint reader lit up blue. I tried my fingerprint, and it logged me in immediately. These are amazing for Windows Hello if you can find the drivers for it. Windows Hello allows you to log into Windows faster than any other method. It's faster than using a pin, and especially than using your Microsoft Account Password, while being more secure. It's not perfect, but I would still recommend it if you can get drivers for it.UPDATE 5/8/2023 This fingerprint reader still works in Windows 11, albeit still needing to search for drivers for it if on a new system. The drivers can be found by Googling " Digital Persona U are U 4500 Windows Hello Driver". The official driver can be found on the HID Global website(second link down in the Google Search). Extract the zipped driver to it's own folder. Open the unzipped folder, open the folder named setup then open the file named setup64.exe. Proceed through the installation, restart, then add your fingerprints, and it should work. It's as accurate as ever roughly two years later. I will likely be buying a second one as just built a new PC, I love the convenience of Windows Hello Fingerprint Login.

useless without expensive user software subscription