Android 17 Beta 4 might have just given us a major hint at new changes coming to the Google Pixel 11 later this year.
Earlier this week, Google launched the final beta for Android 17, and within the final beta, we’re seeing some new changes that could be coming to the Pixel 11 later this year. One of those is Pixel Glow. The team over at Android Authority found this while digging through the code, which was first mentioned back in Android 17 Beta 2 as “light animations”.
Now, Google has a branded or marketing name available now, it’s called ‘Pixel Glow’, and as the page in Settings describes it, “Stay in the moment without losing touch. [Pixel Glow] uses subtle light and color on the back of your device to inform you of important activity when it’s face down.” It essentially sounds like the notification LED is coming back.
Could Google be bringing RGB over to the Pixel? It might. There’s a strong in the code for this feature that says “The device must have hardware lights”. So far, we haven’t seen any other lights on the back of the Pixel 11 in the renders we’ve seen. But it is also possible that the CAD files do not include those features, as they’re not really needed for building cases for the Pixel 11.
Strings of code point to Gemini being part of Pixel Glow
Big surprise here, but some strings of code that were found in the latest beta show that Pixel Glow will use Gemini quite a bit.
Of course, it’s going to use Gemini. Google wants to have Gemini in every feature of every product that Google makes. But how will it be used with Pixel Glow? We don’t know just yet.
This feature is unlikely to launch with Android 17 in a month or two, so it could instead come with Android 17 QPR1 which should launch around the same time as the Pixel 11 series.
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