Night Light prevents your eyes from feeling the effects of looking at your phone's display all night - Google reveals 13 things Pixel users can do to personalize their phones

Google reveals 13 things Pixel users can do to personalize their phones

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While Apple continues to try to turn iOS into Android, real Android is extremely customizable, especially on Pixel phones. On Wednesday, Google released a report revealing 13 ways you can customize the sound and look of your Pixel. The first suggestion is based on some new features that were part of the just released June Feature Drop.
Now you can use your photo to make a personalized wallpaper for your phone. On Pixel 6 or later, select your own image to use as wallpaper and thanks to the Cinematic wallpaper feature, on-device machine learning will give the image a 3D look. As a result, when you tilt your Pixel, the wallpaper appears to come to life. Another option, available for Pixel 4a and later, is the Emoji wallpaper that lets you select your choice of emoji combinations, colors, and patterns.

Night Light will remove blue light that interferes with your sleep patterns

Google points out that you can give your eyes a break from staring at your phone screen all day by enabling Night Light. Turns your screen amber and removes blue light that can interfere with your sleep patterns when you look at it at night. To activate the night light go to Settings > Screen and turn on Night light. Pixel also lets you make text and widgets bigger or smaller. You can make text bold and enable the High Contrast Text setting. This changes the text color to black or white to maximize contrast with the background. To make these changes go to Settings > Screen.

Night Light prevents your eyes from feeling the effects of looking at your phone's display all night - Google reveals 13 things Pixel users can do to personalize their phones

Night Light prevents your eyes from feeling the effects of looking at your phone display all night


Another tip from Google is to prevent your phone screen from turning off too quickly by going to Settings > Screen and set the screen timeout for a longer period of time. You have options from 15 seconds up to 30 minutes. There is also a toggle switch to activate the screen focus. This feature uses the front facing camera to determine if you are looking at the screen. If you are, the screen will stay on.

Now we will move away from your eyes. Going to Settings > Sound and vibration, you can change the volume settings for notifications and alarms to increase or decrease them. The same options are available for setting the media volume, call volume and ringtone volume. And if you tap Vibration & Haptics, you’ll be able to change the strength of the vibrations you get for phone calls, alarms, and more. You can also set the phone to first vibrate and then gradually ring when you receive a call.

If you have Adaptive Audio turned on, Pixel uses the microphone to evaluate the acoustics in your location and adjusts the audio equalizer accordingly. You can find this setting by going to Settings > Sound and vibration > Adaptive sound. Adding widgets to your home screen gives you the information you want at a quick glance. Long press on an empty property on your home screen,and when the popup appears, tap on Widgets. Scroll until you find the widget you want, long press on it, and you’ll be taken to an empty spot on your phone’s home screens where you can place a widget.

Pixel users can customize their Pixel home screens by adding widgets: Google reveals 13 things Pixel users can do to personalize their phones

Pixel users can customize their Pixel home screens by adding widgets

Google claims that Pixel users can improve their concentration by using the Do Not Disturb feature found on Settings > Notifications. You can set which people, apps, and alarms can interrupt when you’ve turned on Do Not Disturb. People you don’t need to talk to right now can be addressed later.

Want to learn more about a song you just heard playing in the background? Make sure Now Playing is enabled. The song and artist will appear on your home screen, and if you tap it, you’ll see all the different platforms you can choose from to listen to the song. The feature uses AI on your device to find the song you’re playing in the background.

To make sure you have Now Playing enabled go to Settings > Sound and vibration > Now playing. Make sure the “Locate nearby songs playing” switch is turned on. Tap your Now Playing history to see the latest songs your Pixel has collected. You can choose to listen to the melody from YouTube Music, YouTube and Apple Music.

Now Playing identifies songs playing in the background and shows you where to find them to stream to your Pixel: Google reveals 13 things Pixel users can do to personalize their phones

Now Playing identifies songs playing in the background and shows you where you can find them to stream to your Pixel

Want to extend your Pixel’s battery life? Going to Settings > Drums and enabling power saver disables background activity of apps and puts the UI in dark mode to save battery life. With Extreme Battery Saver, you can close all apps except essential apps and those you add to a whitelist. As Google notes, if you’re on the go you can get Google Maps to work but close your social media apps.

Go to Settings > Warehousing and you can free up storage space by removing unnecessary files in categories like apps, system, pictures, videos, games, documents and more, audio, and trash. Tap on one of these options and you’ll be able to delete some of the files you don’t need.

A cool Pixel feature I use all the time lets me say “Stop” when an alarm or timer goes off to ignore it. This is part of the Quick Phrases feature that lets you use Google Assistant without having to say “Hey Google.” On your Pixel phone, say “Hey Google, go to Assistant settings.” Turn on Alarms and timers and Incoming calls. You will be able to stop alarms and timers by saying “Stop” or “Snooze” and manage incoming calls by saying “Answer” or “Reject”. This is very useful if you are not near your phone and don’t want an alarm or call to keep ringing.

With shortcuts, Pixel users can say a few words and their Pixel knows exactly where to go or what to do

The last feature mentioned by Google for Pixel users is setting up Assistant shortcuts. With this feature, you will be able to add a new contact by saying “Hey Google, add new contact”. To see a list of shortcuts, go to Settings and type Shortcuts in the search bar at the top of the screen. Tap Shortcuts for Google Assistant and you’ll find a list of apps you can set a shortcut for. Tap one of the app names and hit the plus button for the shortcuts you want to add to your phone.

Set up Assistant shortcuts to make your phone handle tasks with just a few words: Google reveals 13 things Pixel users can do to personalize their phones

Set up assistant shortcuts to have your phone handle tasks with just a few words

For example, you can set up a shortcut that will allow Google Maps to show you directions home, no matter where you are. In the shortcut settings, tap on Google Maps and you will see all the shortcut options you have for this app. Tap the plus button on the option marked “Home,” and you’ll see a popup telling you the next time you want to see directions home on Google Maps, just say, “Hey Google, home.” With shortcuts, your Pixel can do a variety of tasks just by saying a few words to the Google Assistant.

There you have it, 13 ways to personalize your Pixel shared by Google itself. Why not try a few and fall in love with your Pixel all over again?

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