Finger print reader recommendations

With MS wanting us to use passkeys instead of passwords I'm wondering if a finger print reader would be a better option. My questions are, Would it be better and if it would be better than using a passkey what readers are worth buying? Just getting started today and knowing nothing about passkeys I want to keep it easy for me while getting the security that I should have. Before I decide to buy a reader or not I'm going to read Brink's guides to better understand passkeys. My concern with the passkey option is that on the two sites I have setup I only see the option to use the pin that I use to log-in to my MS account.

MS Authenticator has a PASSKEYS section. I am in no hurry to use them.

The only thing I know about Fingerprint Readers, is from my experiences in the 70’s/80’s

I've tried fingerprint readers in the past, but even today the reliability isn't what I desire for the purpose. I use it on my Samsung Galaxy S25, and sometimes it just refuses to recognize any of the stored fingerprints for no apparent reason. That's the newest Samsung Galaxy phone currently, so it it doesn't work well there, I'm not wanting to trust it to lock my computer.

I've been using a Bio-Key EcoID II for about 5 years now and I've had zero problems with it. It integrates well with Win 11's "Hello" and requires no special drivers. I have noticed recently that other sites like Google (YouTube) also have the option of using biometric inputs for logging in using passkeys. I suspect that this will increase with time. If I had any complaint about it, it would be that it seems kind of fussy about the fingerprint placement. It wants to see the whole fingerprint oriented as it was initially scanned. It won't work at all if your finger is dry or caloused ostensibly because it uses capacitive technology . I usually get around that by wetting my finger and dabbing it with a tissue and it always works after that. There are other technologies in use like RF, but I'm not familiar with the details of the implementation.

Now, having said that I also have an Acer laptop with a fingerprint reader which is very small, and looks to be about 1/5th the size of the Bio-Key reader's scanned area. When you initially save the fingerprint, it requires you to draw the finger from bottom to top of the finger so it can store the whole fingerprint. But, when it reads it for a login, it can correlate with pretty much any part of the fingerprint initially scanned and at a fairly large degree of orientation. I've also found the fingerprint reader on the laptop to be much more responsive and much more "sensitive".

All in all, the technolgy has worked for me pretty much flawlessly, at least with Win 11. I haven't tried it with Linux...yet.

Jabiru

Your description of the Bio-Key EcoID II behavior is pretty much like my phone, which is annoying at times. 98% of the time it seems fine, but then it'll just refuse to read the fingerprint. I have tried wetting the finger, that doesn't impress it either. The killer is I use the passcode to log in, then I can immediately go back and use the fingerprint 10 seconds later with no problem! Obviously there's some reason they want me to use the passcode, even though they still keep presenting the option to use the fingerprint.

Just bought this cheapo PQi My Lockey dongle. It's an older version. It says USB2 but works on 3. Cheap as chips so I can play around with it. Just plug in and do other things and it will eventually install it's driver and software automatically. I didn't bother with the software but used Windows settings to set it up.
How long a cheap dongle will last is anybody's guess but I can see it making me even more lazy. Sharing it between three laptops.
So far I'm using it with Amazon, Gmail, 11 forum and 12 Forums.

Didn't use the software :