What do you do when Face ID doesn’t recognize your face? Do you reposition your face? Reposition the iPhone? Stare a little harder at the camera, to tell it you really mean business?

Stop! Instead of acquiescing to your iPhone X’s silent demands, you should use this as a teaching moment (and show your phone who’s boss at the same time). Face ID learns how your face changes over time, but you can also teach it to recognize you better. Here’s how.

How to train your iPhone X’s Face ID to be more accurate

Next time you experience an embarrassing silence when your iPhone X fails to recognize you, like meeting an ex-fling at the inter-office Christmas party and forgetting their name, you shouldn’t try to make yourself easier to recognize.

Instead, take control of the situation and tap in your iPhone X passcode. This tells Face ID that you are in fact you, and that the stupid phone got it wrong. Face ID will then modify its internal model of your face, and better recognize you the next time you present yourself. Over time, Face ID should become more accurate.

This is the same learning algorithm that allowed the Khanov brothers to trick their iPhone X into believing they were both the same person. Our own Luke Dormehl wrote this on the subject:

However, rather than the passcode simply circumventing Face ID to unlock the device, the iPhone X apparently assumes the person unlocking the phone is the owner. The iPhone X’s sensors apparently capture the user’s face, using the new data as a correction signal for the neural network that powers Face ID.

Sometimes, then, you need to show Face ID some tough love. It might not be easy, but it definitely will make everyone happier in the end.