Last week, we put special attention on the specific apps that we know for sure will work with the Google Pixel 4’s Motion Sense to allow skipping tracks without touching your phone. However, Motion Sense will be capable of more than just media controls. Check out everything you’ll be able to do with Motion Sense on the Google Pixel 4 at launch.
When Google showed off the first video of the Pixel 4 in action — long before leakers started doing hands-on videos — one of the main features was Motion Sense, which allow controlling your phone with hand gestures. The primary use case shown for Motion Sense was skipping media tracks, but with as capable as we know Project Soli is (that’s the tech underlying Motion Sense), we knew there would be more gestures available.
Some of the many Pixel 4 leaks have shown a few other gestures that Motion Sense will be able to handle, but we decided to take a closer look using the Motion Sense app provided to us by the folks at NextRift.
Before we dig into the full list, though, there’s a few things to keep in mind. The first is that this information comes from a pre-release version of Motion Sense on a leaked Pixel 4 device. This means any or all of it could change by the time Made by Google 2019 rolls around, including the addition of new actions.
Second, all of these gestures are listed as “built-in actions,” which could hint at developers getting access to creating their own Motion Sense gestures later on, but we have no firm evidence of that yet. Now then, onto the list!
Everything you can do with Pixel 4 Motion Sense
Digging into the code for Motion Sense, it seems that Google has honed in Project Soli’s capabilities down to four core “gestures” — reach, swipe, flick, and presence.
Reach — Reduce ringer, alarm, or timer volume
When you think of Motion Sense on the Pixel 4, you might at first think of it in the same way you think of Android 10’s gesture navigation: Give a swipe in a certain direction and something happens. In reality, Motion Sense adds the third dimension to it — depth.
Using depth, Motion Sense can detect that you’re “reaching” for your phone and respond depending on what’s going on. Motion Sense on Google Pixel 4 will use this to quiet down your phone when it detects that you’re reaching for it while you have an incoming call, a ringing timer, or an alarm going off. At launch, it appears that the alarm and timer functions of Motion Sense will only work with the included Phone and Google Clock apps, not third-party applications.
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