- Motion Cues can be ready to play on Android
- Fights motion sickness while traveling
- We first saw hints of this feature around this time last year
A year ago, a new Android feature called Motion Cues was spotted hidden in Google Play Services code, and its launch appeared to be imminent. It hasn’t appeared yet – but that may be about to change.
Once again we are indebted to the team at Robot body To do the necessary digging, it seems as if the feature still exists. However, limitations in the capabilities of Android itself are the reason why it has not been released yet.
Motion Cues, like the equivalent feature in iOS, will draw dots on the screen that move relative to the phone’s actual movement — in theory reducing nausea, because it means your brain won’t be completely confused about whether you’re moving or not.
However, drawing those dots on top of the main settings panels requires heightened security permissions that Motion Cues doesn’t yet have. The restrictions are in place to prevent hackers from overlaying items on top of icons and menus that control how your phone works.
Will he arrive soon?
In the latest Android Canary build — the beta program in which Google engineers test new features — responsibility for Motion Cues appears to have been moved to a more core part of Android, with additional security rights.
This means that dots that sync with your phone’s movement will be able to cover the entire screen, even if you’re looking at important system settings or the quick settings panel is pulled down from the top of the screen.
Once this new approach is tested and established, it will be made public. It could appear as part of the Android 17 update which we expect to hear more about over the next few months.
Apple’s version of this, called Vehicle Motion Cues, was introduced with iOS 18 and works in a similar way: you can manage and enable the feature from the main Settings screen by tapping Accessibility > Mobility > Vehicle movement signals.
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