v1.0 mybadstudios.com ↗
Troubleshooting

Facial Recognition Tips

Photo quality

The quality of the photos you upload determines how reliably facial recognition works. Follow these guidelines for best results:

  • Upload three photos per employee: front-on, slight left turn, slight right turn. Three angles gives the recognition engine more data to work with.
  • Good lighting: even, diffuse light works best. Avoid harsh shadows across the face or strong backlighting.
  • Face fills the frame: crop the photo so the face takes up most of the image. A tiny face in a large photo gives the engine very little to work with.
  • Neutral expression, eyes open: extreme expressions or sunglasses reduce accuracy.
  • Consistent with working conditions: if employees usually wear hats or uniforms at work, photograph them the same way.

Rebuilding the cache

The iOS app stores facial recognition data locally as a cache file. This cache must be rebuilt whenever photos are added or changed.

1

Add or update photos on the employee record in the WordPress dashboard.

2

Open the iOS app on a device with an internet connection.

3

Go to the Clock In tab and select Face.

4

Tap Rebuild. The app downloads all employee photos and regenerates the face embeddings. This may take a minute for large employee counts.

⚠️
Rebuild on every device

The cache is stored per device. If you have multiple iPhones or iPads, rebuild the cache on each one after changing employee photos.

Adjusting the threshold

The face recognition threshold controls how similar a face must be to a stored embedding before it counts as a match. It is set in Settings → Face Recognition Threshold.

  • Default (0.65) — works well indoors with consistent lighting
  • Higher (0.80–0.85) — recommended for outdoor use or variable lighting. Reduces false matches but may require employees to position themselves more carefully.
  • Lower (0.50–0.60) — matches more easily but increases the risk of a wrong employee being identified. Not recommended.

Facial recognition will not activate for an employee unless the POPIA consent checkbox is ticked on their employee record. If an employee is not being matched by facial recognition even though their photos look good, check the consent checkbox first.