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Android Feature Eases Car Sickness for Passengers
4 Sep
Summary
- Moving dots help reduce sensory mismatch causing motion sickness.
- Feature uses phone sensors to detect vehicle movement.
- Motion Assist is rolling out gradually to select Pixel phones.
Google is addressing passenger motion sickness with its new Android feature, Motion Assist. This tool introduces animated dots around the screen's edges that dynamically respond to a vehicle's motion. By providing visual cues synchronized with the body's sense of movement, the feature aims to mitigate the sensory conflict that often leads to nausea and dizziness.
Motion Assist leverages the phone's internal sensors, such as the accelerometer and gyroscope, to detect changes in speed and direction. Users have the flexibility to customize the shape, size, color, and opacity of these on-screen cues. The feature can also be set to activate automatically when the phone detects it's in a moving vehicle.
This feature is currently undergoing a phased rollout, primarily appearing on select Pixel devices running Android 17. It is being distributed through Google Play services rather than a standard app update. Users experiencing motion sickness while using their phones in vehicles may find this a helpful new tool, similar to Apple's Vehicle Motion Cues introduced in iOS 18.
