Do you not use FaceID or TouchID or unlock with the Watch?
I switched my pin to alphanumeric because I’m not putting it in every time I pickup my phone. I can live with the inconvenience of putting the passcode in every couple of days or so.
I just want to second this. I use a long alphanumeric password to unlock my iPhone plus FaceID.
I enter the password at most a few times a week after reboots and if someone plays with the phone and gets FaceID to fail too many times. It’s not annoying at all to unlock with the keyboard rarely.
Lately I've found FaceID can't handle my 'first thing in the morning and haven't had my coffee' face. I'm not sure if it's me or if Apple updated the algorithm.
If you haven’t already, I would nuke and pave the facial recognition. Haven’t faced anything like that since TouchID but that would be a red flag to me that the recognition data set is betraying me.
I switched my pin to alphanumeric because I’m not putting it in every time I pickup my phone. I can live with the inconvenience of putting the passcode in every couple of days or so.