Google's new ‘Heads Up’ feature wants you to stop looking at your phone while walking
The new feature is part of Google’s Digital Wellbeing suite and has been aptly titled “Heads Up” and currently works only on the company’s Pixel devices.
Using your phone while you're outdoors can be quite risky, whether you live in a crowded city or a less populated area — paying attention to your surroundings can be difficult with everything that's happening on your device screen. Google wants to do something about that, and the company is rolling out a new feature to its Pixel devices, to remind you to be more aware of your surroundings.
Also read: Here's why you can no longer use low battery as an excuse to leave Google Meet video calls
The new feature is part of Google's Digital Wellbeing suite and has been aptly titled “Heads Up” and currently works only on the company's Pixel devices. The screen attention feature works by picking up your movement when you get up with your phone and begin walking around. The feature was spotted by a Twitter user Jay Prakash Kamat who posted a screenshot of the onboarding screen.
— Jay Prakash Kamat (@jay__kamat) April 12, 2021
The feature will only work when the screen is on, so that you don't get notifications when you're walking with your phone in your pocket. The new “Heads Up” feature pushes out alerts to users in the form of seven short messages — Be careful, Look ahead, Stay focused, Look up, Stay alert, Watch out, and Watch your step.
Read more: If these leaked renders are anything to go by, the Google Pixel Watch looks sleek
While the new Heads Up feature won't stop the figurative ‘zombie-fication' of mobile users in public, it will hopefully nudge enough of us to be more careful while walking outside with our phones in our hands. The feature is currently rolling out to Google's Pixel devices, as part of an update to version 1.0.342229637.beta of the company's Digital Wellbeing app. This is also a good sign that the feature might roll out to other devices, just like other wellbeing features that have eventually made their way to non Pixel devices in the past.
Catch all the Latest Tech News, Mobile News, Laptop News, Gaming news, Wearables News , How To News, also keep up with us on Whatsapp channel,Twitter, Facebook, Google News, and Instagram. For our latest videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel.