- Android 17 Beta 4 makes internal reference to an in-development notification tool called Pixel Glow.
- Pixel Glow uses “subtle light and color” when your phone is face-down to let you know when things happen.
- Requirements for hardware lights might mean that Google’s adding RGB LEDs to upcoming Pixel devices.
Android 17 Beta 4 just landed, bringing us closer than ever to Google’s upcoming stable release. At this late stage, we’re not seeing Google make a ton of user-facing changes — but that doesn’t mean that progress hasn’t been moving swiftly along under the hood. As we dive deeper into the new build, we’ve managed to surface a small mystery that might just hint at a big hardware change for the Pixel 11 series.
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Back in Android 17 Beta 2, we first identified development efforts towards a feature for “Light animations.” At the time we weren’t very sure what Google was doing here, and didn’t have many details outside a reference to something called “Orbit,” which felt like a possible codename. But now in Beta 4, the picture is finally starting to come together.
