passcode always required to unlock iphone

I am well aware of that option which of course eliminates the use of wallet.

But now today after updating to 11.0.2, the problem went away. I turned on my passcode again and set the required setting to 4 hours and so far I haven’t had to enter my passcode to turn phone back on after auto lock period.

Well now with my iphone 6s at ios 11.0.3, my phone is once again working fine with Auto Lock set to 5 minutes and 4 hours set for the period after which you have to re-enter your Passcode. According to Apple support, with AUTO LOCK set, the phone will do just that - lock the phone and require you to enter your Passcode. That statement seems at odds with the setting for when Passcode is required. With that again set to 4 hours, my phone display shuts down after 5 minutes in order to conserve the battery life. But after that AUTO LOCK period of 5 minutes, I can always use the Home button to turn the phone and display back on w/o entering the Passcode as long as 4 hours hasn't passed. Its obviously annoying to have to enter the Passcode every time you turn the phone back on after the 5 minute Auto Lock period; that's non-productive and its why I believe there is the setting for when the Passcode has to be entered again - after a more reasonable 4 hours rather than 5 minutes.

Unfortunately I spoke too soon. I was able to reinstate the passcode and I didnt have to enter it every time the phone went to sleep and after waking the phone with the Home button. But a while later it stopped working once more and required the passcode every time I went to wake the phone. So obviously there are some issue surrounding the auto lock feature and entering the passcode all the time.