One of the newer features on the Google Pixel 4 this year, is Motion Sense. It’s using the Project Soli chip (which is a radar chip) that’s built into the Pixel 4, to do some pretty cool gestures. These gestures aren’t new, but they are very useful, in some cases. However, many are saying it’s a bit difficult to use them, so here’s how you can use Motion Sense on the Pixel 4.
How to use Motion Sense for controlling media
This is perhaps one of the less useful parts of Motion Sense, which is swiping to the next song or the previous song. And here’s why. The phone needs to have the screen on and open to the music app. So it’s not super useful as the other two listed here.
But you can switch to the next song or go back to the previous one by waving your hand over the phone. Wave left to right to go to the next song, or wave right to left to go back. It’s pretty easy to do actually. In supported apps, it will show a light bar at the top of the screen, showing that it is supported, then when you wave, the light bar will go to that side, and go to the next or previous song.
Motion Sense does work with most media apps, though we’ve only tried it with YouTube Music, Google Play Music and Spotify. But Google says it’ll work with most, if not all.
How to use Motion Sense for snoozing alarms
This is one of the more useful parts of Motion Sense actually. As you are able to quickly snooze your alarm without having to fumble with your phone.
Firstly, as your hand gets closer to your phone, it’s going to start to quiet down the alarm, which is really nice in itself. Then you can also wave it away, to snooze it for about nine minutes. This doesn’t work to completely dismiss the alarm unfortunately.
It’s better than having to deal with your phone when you are likely still half asleep. This does only work with the Clock app that is pre-installed on the Pixel 4. No other clock apps from the Play Store will work here, unfortunately.
How to use Motion Sense for dismissing calls
This is another one that is pretty useful actually, and like with alarms, the ringer volume will start to decrease as your hand gets closer to it. And that’s thanks to the radar chip, seeing your hand get into the bubble around the phone.
Also, much like the alarm, you can wave your hand over the phone to dismiss the call. You can do it either left to right or right to left, it’ll work either way.
It’s important to note that this doesn’t actually take the call off of your screen, it just quiets the ringing. So the caller won’t know that you rejected the call and be sent straight to voicemail. Which might come in handy for some.