Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google may finally add a double-tap gesture to turn off the screen on Pixel phones, a common feature available on competitor devices.
- Evidence for this lock screen gesture appeared in the latest Android 16 beta, and it functions as expected, though it’s not yet enabled for users.
- The official roll out of this feature is uncertain; it probably won’t make it into the stable Android 16 launch but might arrive in a later quarterly update.
Google Pixel phones are beloved for many reasons, and their software is chief among them. Google offers numerous Pixel-exclusive capabilities, like AI-powered features that simplify phone calls and photography. However, Pixel phones also frustratingly lack some basic features that users migrating from other brands often expect. One notable omission is a double-tap gesture to turn off the screen, but Google might finally be adding this feature to Pixel devices.
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Many of the best Android phones from brands like Samsung, Xiaomi, and OnePlus let you turn the screen off by double-tapping the lock screen, but Pixel phones don’t offer this. Double-tapping the lock screen on a Pixel simply does nothing, which is odd considering you can double-tap the screen to turn it on.
In the latest beta of Android 16, however, there’s evidence that Google is finally adding a gesture to turn off the screen with a double tap on the lock screen. However, this gesture isn’t active yet in Android 16 Beta 4, nor is there a user-facing setting to turn it on. Nonetheless, I was able to get it working, and it functions exactly as expected. With this new gesture, you can double tap on an empty spot of the lock screen to turn off your Pixel phone’s screen.
It’s surprising Google didn’t add this basic double-tap gesture sooner, but we’re glad the company is finally implementing it. We don’t know when the feature will officially roll out, though. Since it isn’t available in Beta 4, it’s unlikely to appear in the stable Android 16 release. The feature might arrive as early as the first quarterly update for Android 16, but we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, you can install a third-party app called Pixel Toolbox to enable this gesture now.
If you recently migrated from another phone brand to Pixel, are you missing the double-tap screen-off gesture? Let us know in the comments below!
