The most eye-catching addition to the Pixel 11 series is, rather ironically, a callback from Android’s past. It’s something Google’s calling HiLight, and it’s basically a new series of LED lights built into the freshly thinned-down camera bar on the phones’ backs. The lights illuminate to alert you to different events, allowing you to know about important incoming info at a glance — without having to so much as even look at your screen.
If the concept feels familiar, it should: Early Android devices boasted a similar sort of LED notification light for a very similar purpose. They were less visually striking, but they served the same basic purpose — up until they went out of favor for the far more complex (and, some might argue, less effective) always-on display concept that followed.
Here’s a little secret, though: You don’t have to have a new Pixel 11 phone in front of you to enjoy a similar sort of distraction-reducing, awareness-enhancing sorcery. You can actually recreate the Pixel 11 HiLight glow effect on any Android device this instant — and do it in a way that’s much more versatile, functional, and all-around useful, to boot.
This story originally appeared on Computerworld
