Skip to main content

The eyes have it: Samsung Pay will let you purchase items using your retina

samsung pay update masterpass galaxy s7 edge
Jeffrey Van Camp/Digital Trends
Looking to make a purchase? Thanks to Samsung Pay, that’s literally all you need to do.

The latest update to Samsung Pay allows consumers to pay with nothing more than their retina (that is to say, your eye). But there’s a catch — this feature only works if you have a Galaxy Note 7. And seeing as Samsung is currently in the midst of a rather large recall of these smartphones and their exploding batteries, you may want to make sure you have a safe version of the Note 7 before you go around letting it scan your eye.

In Samsung Pay version 2.3, consumers can do a number of cool things, though some of them are more of a server-side change than they are an app update. For example, Samsung Pay users can now “buy more of your favorite gift cards with Samsung Pay,” and the platform also “now accepts more of your favorite membership cards.”

True updates include the iris authentication feature, and Card Restore, which allows users to restore all membership, gift, and Samsung Reward cards upon signing back into Samsung Pay.

If you’re looking to update the app, simply open Samsung Pay, select the “More” button in the top right-hand corner, then navigate your way over to “Announcements.” From there, you can look into the “What’s new in 2.3” announcement to view the whole host of changes. And once you’re satisfied with this information, you can tap anywhere on the announcement to actually load the update page.

Samsung Pay has had a pretty impressive several weeks, including its recent announcement that it had handled 100 million transactions after just a year of activity. And while it may not be as big as Android Pay or Apple Pay, it’s certainly making its dent in the market, and retina scanning will certainly help.

Editors' Recommendations

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
Have a Samsung phone? This is the one app you have to download
Samsung Goodlock app logo.

The main page of the Samsung Good Lock app Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

Samsung’s One UI is a mine of hidden features, especially for users that are deep into customizing every aspect of their phone. The most obvious place to start is enabling the developer options and digging into the Labs section. But there is still a ton of functional and aesthetic ground left to cover, which is often not possible even if you turn to third-party tools and launchers.

Read more
Does the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 have a headphone jack?
Timer running on the Galaxy Z Flip 5 cover screen.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is here, and it's flippin' marvelous. It's largely just Samsung that has defined the nascent flip smartphone market, and while flipping and folding phones haven't quite broken into the mainstream yet, the Z Flip 5 is sure to tempt more and more people into buying into the future of smartphone design. The biggest new addition to the Z Flip 5 is the larger outer screen, which is a big upgrade over the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4's much smaller display and worthy of rivaling the Motorola Razr Plus's impressively large outer display.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 is a fantastic piece of tech, packed with the latest and most powerful hardware Samsung can get its hands on. But what about a piece of very old tech? What about the humble 3.5mm headphone jack? Does Samsung's latest flip phone have room for a headphone jack, or does the Z Flip 5 follow the same trend of the last few years in omitting the venerable port?

Read more
12 things you have to do with your Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 on a flat surface with the purple Galaxy Buds 2 Pro TWS Bluetooth earbuds on the side.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is the most underrated update in Samsung's flagship lineup this year. Its unchanged aesthetics from the Galaxy Z Fold 4 might mislead you into believing there are hardly any changes. But Samsung has brought a fair bit of improvement to the design in the form of a smoother hinge mechanism, a smaller gap along the pivot, and thinner and lighter overall device compared to the Fold 4. As a result of an optimized design, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 gets better overall usability.

With a design that essentially offers two phones in one — and an overall user experience that's difficult to match — the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is an outstanding device. To best utilize what the gadget offers, though, there are some features you should explore and master. Here are 12 things you must do when you buy the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
Change the navigation bar layout

Read more