Skip to main content

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

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.

Recommended Videos

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.”

Please enable Javascript to view this content

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.

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…
If you like Samsung’s Edge Panels, you may not like the One UI 7 update
Galaxy S23 back in hand.

You probably have at least 50 apps installed on your phone, if not significantly more — but you likely only use maybe 10 or so of those apps on a routine basis. Samsung's Edge Panels feature made it easy to access your most-used apps, but that feature is starting to go the way of the Dodo with the upcoming One UI 7 launch.

Samsung sent an email to users alerting them that Edge Panels will no longer work with the launch of One UI 7, and those users took to X to share the email. That said, it's not quite as straightforward as it might seem.

Read more
Samsung’s One UI 7 update has been significantly delayed
A person holding the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Samsung fans have been waiting with bated breath for the One UI 7 update, but we have bad news: it's been delayed until next year, according to the keynote speech at Samsung's developer conference.

One UI 7 will be released with the Galaxy S25 series, which will launch in January at the earliest. It's a relatively safe assumption that updates will roll out to older devices after that.

Read more
Have one of these Samsung phones? Don’t update it right now
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus and Galaxy S10 Plus.

Do you have an older Samsung Galaxy device, such as the Galaxy S10 or Galaxy Note 10, which came out in 2019? If so, you may want to hold off on the latest update for those devices, as 9to5Google is reporting that they’re getting bricked when the update is installed.

Samsung has gotten better about longer support for its devices over the past several years, but this also appears to have become a problem. For example, when the new update breaks your device and requires a factory reset to fix it.

Read more