Tinder's fake 'height verification' is now a real feature on another app

An April Fool's joke from Tinder in 2019 is now real.

Seven years ago, Tinder joked that it was adding height verification to its app. Now, in 2026, the matchmaking app Tenr has made that a reality.

"People care about height, and the app is all about not BS-ing and giving information up front," said Adam Moelis, the founder of Tenr. (Moelis also co-founded fintech company Yotta. In 2024, thousands of Yotta customers were locked out of their accounts and unable to access their money due to the failure of one of its banking partners. It appears that many customers are still locked out of their Yotta accounts as of this writing.)

What is Tenr?

Tenr is a matchmaking app that aims, as Moelis said, to cut the BS in dating. The fundamental idea is that it doesn't take a two or three-hour date to know if you're interested in someone, but only ten minutes. Users sign up, answer questions about themselves and their preferences, and Tenr "crunches the information" to give three to five matches a day. From there, you have a ten-minute date the app calls a "Tenr," and each party decides whether to meet in person.

AI helps screen people, but it's not the core feature of Tenr, Moelis said. "I don't think AI is good at assessing chemistry, and I think that's probably the most important thing in dating. It's like, do you guys have an energy match? Do you have chemistry? And I think AI can't do that right now. You still need the interaction with the other person." Hence, ten-minute dates.

How does the app verify height?

But back to height. Moelis is right: Height is important to people. For years, people have lamented that women want to date tall guys. Women have even used ChatGPT to catch men lying about it, and Tinder started testing a paid height preference last year. (Tinder told Mashable there isn't an update since then.) Hinge lets users select a height filter and there's even a "deal breaker" option that you can toggle if you're not open to seeing any profiles that don't fit your preferences.

I, for one, believe that we as a society need to stop obsessing about height in dating, but the preoccupation persists. And now, an app is getting in on it and using Apple's Measure app to ensure accuracy. (iPhone models 12 and up use LiDAR scanners — Light Detection and Ranging — to produce accurate measurements.)

"We thought it would be kind of a fun feature," Moelis said. "No other dating app is doing that because it's a little bit controversial, but we think it matters to people."

Here's how height verification works on Tenr: Using the LiDAR scanner on the iPhone camera, a friend can hold the phone and point it at you. It's pretty accurate — plus or minus an inch, said Moelis.

The feature went live a few weeks ago, and it's getting a fair amount of use. Moelis is actually surprised by the lack of negative reaction. Over 700 users have verified their heights so far (and the app is close to 6,000 sign-ups since May 2025).

Height verification, of course, isn't the app's only feature. Moelis also mentioned the Wingman, in which users can recruit friends to help choose their photos and leave testimonials about them. But for those who are tired of men lying about a few inches on dating apps, this might be the only way to catch them — before meeting them IRL, that is.