See Motorola’s latest updates to its rollable phone concept

Motorola is refining the exciting Rizr concept smartphone shown during Mobile World Congress (MWC) earlier this year, according to a patent filed in the U.S. in November. In case you missed it, the Rizr is a continuation of its popular Razr folding smartphones, but this time has a motorized rollable screen that retracts and extends to increase the viewing area, or minimize the size of the phone.

The patent addresses how we may eventually unlock the phone using a fingerprint sensor. When the phone’s screen is raised or retracted, a single fixed-position in-display fingerprint sensor wouldn’t always work, so Motorola is experimenting with multiple fingerprint sensors and a larger activation area to solve the problem.

One of the images submitted with the patent shows a normal fingerprint sensor recognition area at the bottom of the front screen when the screen is fully extended, plus a second front recognition area on the front when the screen is in its lowered position. What’s interesting is how Motorola is approaching the back of the phone when the screen is down.

Another fingerprint sensor set on the lower part of the retracted screen means you’d be able to unlock the phone from the back, just like on phones with rear-mounted fingerprint sensors such as the Google Pixel 4a. However, because you wouldn’t see or feel the sensor, Motorola seems to have increased the size of the area recognized by the sensor. The patent sketches also show an area just above the sensor which may provide additional functionality, potentially from swiping or tapping the screen, or as a ticker-style information panel. This is then repeated on the front of the phone when the screen is retracted and the phone is in its standby state.

The patent doesn’t mention the Rizr smartphone specifically, but the design is clearly very similar to the concept device Motorola showed in hardware form. The device had a 5-inch touchscreen which could be extended to 6.5-inches, providing a different take on the compact folding smartphone design for models such as the Motorola Razr 2024 and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6.

When it showed off the Rizr Motorola called it a work in progress, and the related new patent indicates it’s still refining the design to make it more user-friendly and convenient in the real world. While it’s an exciting continuation, the patent does not necessarily mean Motorola is any closer to releasing the Rizr as a fully fledged consumer product, but we love to see the ingenuity and work going into making it an everyday usable phone