You are busy doing ten different things at work and suddenly you forget your mobile password. It has happened to you. Hasn’t it? Well, you can now skip the mini heart attack you might have had in such situations by smiling at your phone to unlock it. Reports say that Google has developed a new Android accessibility feature for Android devices that will allow you to control your phone by using facial expressions like a smile or even raised eyebrows.
Known as the Camera Switch feature, this feature is a part of version 12 of the Accessibility Suite app of Android. It has been released alongside the fourth beta of Android 12. Though the latest version of the app is not available via Google Play (at the time of publishing), there is an APK that you can sideload if you want to give it a shot.
In addition
to letting you unlock the phone, you can also use facial expressions to access
different controls like viewing notifications, scrolling, going home, or even
viewing quick settings. In addition to a smile or raised eyebrows, you can also
control your phone by looking right, left, or up.
Every new
Android feature has a catch. Unfortunately, this one also has one. The new
android accessibility feature consumes a lot of power. So, it comes with a
warning that the feature is power-intensive, and a phone should be plugged in
if you want to use this feature frequently.
The new
android accessibility feature can be especially useful for people with a disability
or people who have problems with some touch controls. A major benefit of this
android accessibility feature is that the facial expressions are silent and
hence can be used when you are in a public place or a quiet environment, like a
library.
It isn’t the first time Android has attempted to make things easier for people with disabilities. You might remember the Android 11 that was launched last year. It delivered improvements to the voice control feature of the operating system. Earlier in the year, Google had also released many other vital accessibility updates like highly customizable Action blocks that let you assign custom actions to the huge on-screen buttons.
As the new
android accessibility feature came alongside the latest Android beta, it is
likely that the feature will be launched as a key element of the OS update that
is planned for the back half of 2021. Reports say that the latest version of
the Accessibility Suite app might be compatible with previous versions like
Android 11. If that’s true, the new feature might not be exclusive to Android
12. What do you think of the Android accessibility feature? Let us know in the comments.
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