With the launch of Phone (3), Nothing replaced the Glyph LEDs with Glyph Matrix at the back. It's a complete departure from the older Glyph interface, as you now have what's essentially a secondary screen that brings new ways to interact with the phone. If you want to understand the new Glyph interface better because you plan on purchasing the Nothing Phone (3) down the line or are just curious, here's a comprehensive guide on the Glyph Matrix, its features and how it works.
What is Glyph Matrix on Nothing Phone (3)?
Glyph Matrix is a new interface on the Nothing Phone (3) that replaces the old Glyph interface. It adds a small interactive display at the back of the phone consisting of 489 micro LEDs that acts as a secondary screen. You can interact with it to try out Glyph Toys, a bunch of nifty games, tools and utilities. Some of these utilities convey quick bits of information about an incoming call, notification, the current volume level and more via quirky animations.
Flipping a Nothing Phone (3) activates the Flip-to-glyph feature, which when paired with Essential Notifications allow you to create rules for certain apps and contacts. The Glyph Matrix will only light up for messages from those select few contacts, which you can further limit to specific keywords. Lastly, you also get a capacitive "Glyph Matrix" key to cycle through the Glyph Toys and activate them.
Glyph Matrix features
There are three main things going for the Glyph Matrix on the Nothing Phone (3) – Glyph Toys, Flip to Glyph with Essential notifications and quick bits of information visuals.
Glyph Toys, as the name suggests, are almost like tiny interactive games and utilities that a user can play and use. As of writing this, there are a total of nine Glyph Toys, including a Stopwatch, Leveller, Rock paper scissors, Battery level, Spin the bottle and more.
These toys/utilities can be cycled through and used by tapping on the Glyph Matrix button at the back and long-pressing it to start a toy. Here are brief descriptions of all the toys and what they do:
- Digital clock: Displays the time on Glyph Matrix
- Battery: Shows the current battery percentage of your Nothing Phone (3)
- Solar clock: Shows where the sun currently is, indicating if it's morning, noon or evening.
- Glyph mirror: Cycling to Glyph mirror and activating it with a long-press activates the camera. The Glyph Matrix acts as a viewfinder, using which you can then take crisp photos with the 50 MP rear main camera.
- Spin the bottle: Long pressing on this Glyph Toy initiates a bottle spin, perfect for the truth or dare session.
- Rock paper scissors: Initiates a game of rock paper scissors with three shakes of hand.
- Magic 8 Ball: Initiates a game of Magic 8 Ball
- Leveller: A community-made widget that uses your phone's gyroscope to determine the level of the surface
- Stopwatch: A basic stopwatch that starts upon long-pressing the button, but also stops with a long-press, which is counter-intuitive.
Gallery
Battery
Spin the bottle
Glyph mirror
Magic 8 Ball
Rock paper scissors
Solar clock
Digital clock
Flip to Glyph is an existing feature but is now tailored for the Glyph Matrix. It kicks in when you flip your device and put it screen down on a flat surface. However, replacing Essential Glyphs is Essential Notifications, which is pretty much the same, instead the latter now applies for Glyph Matrix.
Essential Notifications allow you to tweak when the Glyph Matrix will light up. You can choose a select few apps that you want to receive notifications from and create custom rules and a custom icon to quickly identify who's texting you. As mentioned earlier, you can even narrow the rules down to trigger the Glyph Matrix only for certain keywords.
Lastly, when it comes to quick bits of information visuals, the Glyph Matrix lights up when you receive a call and notifications alongside a cool visual when adjusting the volume. It can also show a cool recording animation when using the Essential recorder feature to indicate that the phone is recording. Here's a table to help you understand all the features better.
Gallery
Feature | Details |
Flip to Glyph | Activates silent mode and displays calls and notifications via the Glyph Matrix. |
Essential Notifications and rules | Allows you to create custom rules for when you want the Glyph Matrix to light up for certain apps, certain contacts and only certain keywords |
Glyph Toys | A bunch of mini-games and utilities to show you bite-sized information like the battery level, time or use the matrix as a viewfinder for the back camera to take pictures |
Volume indicator | Shows an animation to show the volume level when adjusting the same, dismissing the need to turn on the phone |
Generative ringtones and Sound engine | Dynamically generates Glyph ringtones with unique glyph patterns. There are two engines to choose from, each with its own different sets and styles of animations. |
What does the Glyph Matrix button do?
The Glyph Matrix button is a small circular touch capacitive button on the back of the Nothing Phone (3), and it's used to cycle through the Glyph toys and utilities with a single press and activates them with a long press. It sits slightly below the Glyph Matrix interface and boasts haptics to give feedback when pressed.
The Glyph Matrix button will soon be able to display the Caller ID and number when you long-press it during an incoming call. Nothing says it's working on more features for the new interface, which will hopefully also make the Glyph Matrix button more useful. The ability to remap it was one of our suggestions in Nothing OS 4.0 feature wishlist.
How to set up and use Glyph Matrix on Nothing Phone (3)
If you're new to the Nothing ecosystem, setting up the Glyph Matrix could be jarring. The UI doesn't offer any tutorials on how to set up things like Essential Notifications and create new rules. Therefore, here's a rundown on how to set up and use Glyph Matrix, as we also give you a brief rundown of all the options.
- To enable Glyph Matrix, head over to Settings > Glyph Interface.
- Then turn on the Glyph Toys toggle to enable Glyph Toys, swipe all the way and tap on Flip to Glyph and Volume indicator.
- Now, we can customise Glyph Matrix, starting with toggling auto-brightness or manually setting the brightness.
- Next, you can tap on Glyph Toys for an overview of what each toy does and a preview of how it appears in the Glyph Matrix.
- Hitting the cogwheel icon at the top right takes you to a page where you can adjust the Glyph Toys timeout duration of these widgets.
- You can also turn on the Always-on Glyph toys toggle. The display will always show toys with reduced brightness.
- Now, go back and choose the Sort icon beside the settings cogwheel.
- It takes you to a page where you can manage Glyph Toys and activate them by dragging them to the Active toys section.
- Now, go back to the main Glyph Interface page and select Ringtones.
- Here, you can choose between Classic Glyph ringtone experience or Generative. The latter dynamically generates and assigns ringtones to individual contacts.
- Next, tapping on the Default sound engine lets you choose between two options – Diode and Chemical, each with their own unique animations.
- Now on to Essential Notifications, you can create new rules by tapping on the New rule button.
- Then enter the name of the rule, select the app you want to create the rule for, contact and add keywords to trigger the rule and notification.
- You can select a custom icon, if you want another animation besides the Nothing animation. This helps you determine who sent you a message without turning on the device.
- Once you're done, hit Save rule.
- Lastly, setting up a Bedtime schedule will disable the Glyph Matrix when you're asleep.
- Just turn on the Bedtime schedule toggle and tap on the option; Then set the Start time and End time, alongside when you want it to repeat.
Glyph Matrix: Upcoming Features
With Nothing opening up the Glyph Matrix SDK to developers, we could potentially see more Glyph Toys make it to the interface. However, we're not aware of exactly what features will arrive next. That said, Nothing has confirmed that it's working on bringing more Glyph Toys eventually.
Confirmed by Nothing CEO Carl Pei, one of the other features that we may see as Nothing OS 4.0 rolls out is the integration of Live Updates in Glyph Matrix. Apps that deal with progress-centric notifications, such as food delivery or ride apps like Uber, could use Android's Live Updates, which Nothing can in turn wire to the Glyph Matrix for live updates without turning on the device.
And that's everything there is to the new Glyph Interface, the Glyph Matrix so far. Nothing is expected to add more features over the next few months via OTA updates, and we will keep adding them to this guide as they arrive.
