How will you feel when someone asks you to squeeze their phone and see what happens. Weird though it may sound but it is true. With HTC U11, you got to squeeze your phones to do certain tasks. The phone recognizes short squeezes and long squeezes. In the above-mentioned phone, a short squeeze opens the camera and then subsequent squeezes capture the picture. A long squeeze can be configured to do whatever you like. Say you can open a particular app or flashlight or anything, that’s your call. Welcome to the world of edge sense. While HTC may be the one to implement edge sense feature in its phone, some of the big names like Pixel and iPhone may follow the lead.
What is Edge Sense?
In very simple terms, edge sense feature will sense the pressure at the edges of your device and do what it has been configured to do. This feature comes handy when you have to do something single-handed. You just have to squeeze your phone and voila, it’s done. Clicking photos is a great example of where this feature can be put to use.
How it works
There are pressure sensors lying below the glass edges of the phone. When these sensors are pressed, they complete a task based on the user’s configuration. Right now, a short squeeze putting low pressure on the sensors and a long one with more pressure on the sensor are available in the HTC U11.
How do I use it
The basic idea behind developing the edge sense feature is to make interaction with the phone more natural and haptic. There are also certain scenarios where this can be really useful.
- We all know the frustration of pressing the camera or volume buttons to click a photo at the right moment and angle. Squeezing can be a lot easier than pressing buttons.
- When you are wearing gloves or something similar and pressing buttons is tricky
- You are addicted to a certain app or game and you open it a thousand times a day. What can make opening your addiction simpler!
- Using voice to text for squeeze can be very helpful when you are on the go and need to text something important or urgent. Just squeeze the phone, speak your message and boom.
The possibilities of using Edge Sense are endless. You just figure out how you are going to enjoy it. While this may not be game-changing in the current scenario, who knows how this is implemented in the future. Let’s see how this one turns out.
Edge Sense on TechRadar
