It had 2xIR cameras, flood illuminator and a dot project for that purpose.
Soli was a gimmick on top of that, so it would enable that hardware above when you were reaching with your hand for the phone.
In my case it was a gimmick because I don't see much difference between face unlock times when I reach for the phone and the most useful feature for me (swiping to change music) was working also when my windshield had wipers working.
I dream of a Pixel with normal face unlock (like in Pixel 4, not the crippled on in Pixel 7) but without Soli.
I can't believe that they ditched it after just one generation, now I'm stuck. And only reason to upgrade would be a Pixel that has photos >12mpix (not just the sensor).
Incidentally, I said to myself I would buy a Pixel 5 if it had Soli as well because it would show that Google was becoming serious about supporting features for more than 1 generation.
