system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do non optical finger print biometrics such as on the Galaxy S7 differ from optical based ones?

Yes I've searched and seen the post about smart phone fingerprints being "faster" than traditional, but how is it actually imaging the print?
gpt
Optical scanners work by taking a picture of your finger then processing that image for things like edge detection. This takes time but the hardware is relatively cheap.

The capacitive scanners some devices use is essentially a row of tiny touch screens. They can detect the raised ridges on your skin by touch. This data can be processed in many different ways but for the most part it's simpler - the ridges on your finger are either touching or not touching a part of the sensor. It's sort of like a black and white image - no color data, and the edges are far easier to detect. This has the potential to be faster but the hardware is more expensive.