Get to know Vision.
Face recognition for your Mac, with the details that matter.
Getting started
Vision requires macOS 15 Sequoia or later, an Apple Silicon or Intel Mac, and a working camera. Its public download is not yet linked. These steps describe setup once a verified release is available.
1. Allow your camera
Vision uses camera frames to find your face and calculate recognition data on your Mac. It does not upload these frames.
2. Enroll your face
Follow the guided capture flow, turning your head as directed. You can add appearances for glasses or different lighting in Face settings.
3. Authorize a session
Authenticate on your Mac and save your Mac login password. Accessibility permission lets Vision type this password at the lock screen after recognition.
4. Choose your triggers
Open General settings to choose scanning on wake, lock, or the space key. Adjust the animation style, retry behavior, and scan duration.
Make recognition yours.
Unlock settings control match confidence, detection distance, and liveness checks. A stricter match threshold asks for a closer match to your enrolled profile. Better lighting and a clear camera view improve reliability.
Liveness modes
- Off: Face matching without anti-spoof checks.
- Light: Looks for evidence of a displayed image or screen.
- Heavy: Also looks for live-face cues such as movement and landmark geometry.
No webcam-only mode is equivalent to Apple’s dedicated Face ID hardware. Replayed video is a known limitation. Your Mac password remains the fallback.
Camera & notch
Select a default camera and separate camera preferences for built-in and external displays. Live Preview can be started and stopped in Camera settings. Macs without a notch use a floating pill.
Your identity stays local.
Face frames are processed on-device. Enrolled profiles store numerical embeddings rather than face photos, encrypted with AES-GCM. The app stores an encrypted password blob in macOS Keychain.
The intended session model protects the encryption key with user-presence authentication and caches it during an authorized session. A code review identified credential-migration and entitlement-fallback issues that need to be resolved before a public security claim can be made.
Understand the boundaries
- Vision enters a stored password; it does not replace macOS authentication.
- Your password is required for the first login after a restart, including the FileVault pre-login screen.
- A standard webcam does not offer Face ID’s depth-sensing protection.
- The app currently has an optional local usage journal. No remote analytics sender is active in the reviewed version.
- This website uses Vercel Analytics. Vision’s biometric processing remains on your Mac.
Built today. Being built next.
Vision Unlock
ImplementedFace matching, enrollment, camera preview, and the notch interface are present. The reviewed app builds successfully; live lock-screen reliability still requires device testing.
Vision Guard
In developmentPresence detection and auto-lock settings are present. Continuous frame processing and full lifecycle integration are still required.
Vision Vault
In developmentExperimental app shielding and file-protection controls are present. Authentication policies, liveness enforcement, and folder encryption need end-to-end completion. Do not rely on these previews to secure sensitive data.
Stay connected.
Vision-specific release and support details will be added when the public launch is ready. The links below lead to the original upstream project from which this codebase was developed.