Google’s flagship smartphone launched last year — Pixel 4, had an in-built radar. This was the reason the device was available in selected regions only. However, the company has ditched the Soli radar for this year’s flagship smartphone — Pixel 5.

This means that the “Motion Sense” feature on the smartphone is gone. Does this mean that the Soli radar sensor is gone for good? Well, apparently not. Google’s Rick Osterloh has said to The Verge that Project Soli radar and gestures will return.

He said that the sensor will be used in the future. Explaining why it didn’t make it to this year’s phone, he said that they were too expensive for the phone that the company had planned to make this year.

But note that Rick Osterloh has not confirmed if the hardware will be included in a smartphone in the future. A recent FCC filing had revealed that it might appear in the Nest smart thermostat.

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For those who are unaware, the Project Soli on the Pixel 4 smartphone allowed users to wave above the phone to play/pause and skip tracks, as well as dismiss calls and alarms. However, it’s use-case in Pixel 4 didn’t expand much beyond what Google initially offered.

It was started as an experimental project within ATAP and Google spent several years in research as well as in making the radar smaller in size. The company has positioned the air gestures as the future of controlling devices, so it seems likely that the company will keep the technology around and will experiment with it on different types of devices.

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Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4XL flagship smartphones from the tech giant were launched with a Soli radar chip to offer hands-free usage capabilities. However, the feature hasn’t gained much traction and the phone’s sales are quite low.

So, as per the reports, because of the failure of this Motion Sense feature, the company will be ditching this feature altogether in the next iteration, i.e. Google Pixel 5 series which should get launched this fall.

Motion Sense feature which makes use of the Project Soli radar chip, enables users to make use of gesture-based control system for hands-free experience. While many smartphone brands have offered gesture-based navigation features, Google‘s is the first one to be dependent on a Soli radar chip hardware.

One of the reasons for the low sales of Google Pixel 4 series, apart from the older design and not-so-important premium features, could be the lack of availability in some regions. Because of the presence of soli radar chip which uses certain frequency range, the company needs to obtain permission for frequency usage from the company where it plans to sell the devices. Thus, the smartphone series never made it to countries like India, Japan, China, among others.

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It makes total sense for the company to ditch this Motion Sense feature which is restricting itself from selling the smartphones to two of the world’s leading markets. Also, why should Google include a premium feature that no one really wants to use?

As for the upcoming Google Pixel 5 series, the company is expected to ditch the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC and could instead adopt the Snapdragon 765G chipset which is aimed at premium mid-range devices. The reason behind this could be to keep the phone’s pricing on the lower side as the SD865 is quite expensive compared to its predecessors in the same lineup.

Getting rid of the Motion Sensor will also enable Google to offer a full-screen smartphone experience. The Pixel 5 series is expected to come with a triple-camera setup on the back and this time, the company is said to include a wide-angle sensor as well. We expect more rumours, leaks, and details regarding Pixel 5 lineup to surface in the coming weeks.

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(Source)

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When the Pixel 4 launches on October 15, it will come with a feature called Motion Sense. Motion Sense will allow users to control the device without touching it, thanks to the Soli Radar sensor buried in the top bezel.

However, it has been revealed that the feature will only in certain markets. A list of countries where it will work in has been released as well as a list of supported countries. Before we get to the lists, it is important to state why Motion Sense is available in some markets and not others.

Motion Sense is based on Project Soli, a technology that uses advanced radar technology. Therefore, Google has to be granted permission to use this technology in countries including the United States. So these countries were the feature will be supported can be said to be those that have granted Google permission.

The list of countries was obtained from the Motion Sense app by Nextrift, a Malaysian tech blog that has got its hands on a unit.

Countries/Territories with support for Motion Sense

• American Samoa
• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Canada
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czechia
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Guam
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Puerto Rico
• Romania
• Singapore
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Taiwan
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Virgin Islands, U.S.

The list of countries may increase at launch or post-launch. Notable countries not on the list are China (not surprising), India, Japan, and Mexico. There is also no African or Middle-Eastern Country on the list.

For the apps that support Motion Sense, the list is populated by streaming and playback apps. We definitely hope Motion Sense does more than just change tracks.

• Amazon Music
• Deezer
• Google Play Music
• iHeartRadio
• Pandora
• Spotify
• Spotify Stations
• YouTube Music
• YouTube

The Pixel 4 duo will come with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 processor, 90Hz displays, Titan M Security, and FaceID. They will run Android 10 out of the box with exclusive and new software features. be available in Just Black, Oh So Orange, and Clearly White.

Non-contact gesture control is not a new feature in the mobile industry. A number of Chinese phones including Doogee have offered them on phones in the past though they are definitely not as advanced as the Pixel 4’s Motion Sense.

Earlier his year, LG announced something similar called Air Motion which is available on the LG G8 ThinQ which allows you to not control playback but also control volume with a gesture similar to you turning a knob. You can also take screenshots with a pinch gesture.

Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro also has a similar feature allowing you to swipe to scroll and make a grab-gesture to take a screenshot.

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(Via: 1, 2)

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Google is working on its next-generation Pixel flagship smartphone — Pixel 4 series and the company recently confirmed the phone’s design when it shared a render of the upcoming smartphone, surprising everyone.

Now, the company has yet again shared details about its upcoming smartphone, breaking the company’s norms. It confirmed that the upcoming flagship smartphone will come with support for air gestures and face unlock.

These features will be a part of something that the company calls “Motion Sense” and are powered by the company’s Soli chip. While the Face Unlock feature isn’t new and almost all smartphone makers are offering this feature, Google says that its version will be the fastest and the safest ever.

As for the security measures, the search engine giant will be using the Titan M security chip in the upcoming Pixel 4 smartphones, so you don’t have to worry about security. The facial data will be stored in that chip and never online, so it cannot be accessed by anyone else.

And to make sure that the face unlocks feature for the upcoming Pixel 4 smartphone is as good as the company claims it to be, Google confirmed that it conducted field research. In that, the company went out to the streets and paid people with $5 gift cards to scan their faces. This was earlier reported by several media houses but the Mountain View-based company has not confirmed it.

Google says that after 18 months of collecting the data, it will get rid of the face data that the company collected for these tests. It also said that currently the face scans are “encrypted and access restricted” with no connections to people’s Google account.

Seeing the way Google is going all-out for this “Motion Sense” feature, it seems that the feature will be a major selling point for the upcoming Pixel 4 series devices. It remains to be seen how it fares in the real world and how people receives it. For that, we’ll have to wait until the commercial launch of the upcoming flagship smartphone from Google.

(Source)

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