Google's Pixel Phone Revives Notification Lights with HiLight Feature

Google's new Pixel phone series has revived a classic feature known as notification lights. The feature, called HiLight, uses a glowing ring built around the camera flash to provide glanceable information without lighting up the entire screen or requiring users to pick up their phone.

The most visible use case for HiLight ties into Gemini, Google's AI assistant. When prompted, the light shifts through different patterns to indicate whether it is listening, thinking, or responding. This adds a new dimension to interactions with the assistant, making them more intuitive and user-friendly.

HiLight also allows users to assign custom colors to specific contacts, so they can tell who's calling without turning their phone over. However, this feature only works when the phone is face down on a desk or nightstand, mirroring the same constraint that made old notification LEDs less useful once phones started living in pockets and bags.

While HiLight is a clever piece of hardware reuse, it falls short compared to other companies' implementations. The Nothing Phone's Glyph Interface, for example, uses multiple independent LED segments on the back of the phone to create more expressive patterns and allow third-party apps to hook into the lighting system.