Nothing OS 5.0 launched on August 25, 2026, as one of Nothing’s biggest software updates yet, bringing a redesigned interface, new widgets, Quick Settings changes and more Essential AI features. So, naturally, I wanted to put those changes to the test and see what actually stood out in everyday use.
I’ve spent the last couple of days using the Nothing OS 5.0 Reviewer Beta on the Nothing Phone 3 as my daily driver. That’s obviously not enough time to judge every change or feature, but it is enough to get a good initial idea of what the update has in store.
Nothing OS 5.0 Looks Better, but the Small Changes Matter More
The first thing I noticed after installing Nothing OS 5.0 was the redesign. Even the setup screen looks different. However, the biggest visual change in Nothing OS 5.0 is the new Lucent design language.
With it, widgets, folders and the search bar now have a more translucent appearance, while app icons can take colours from your wallpaper. Even the smaller 1×1 Quick Settings tiles adapt to the background. I like the way it looks.
The redesign, however, goes beyond Lucent. Nothing has also refreshed the overall visual language across the system, with changes to typography, icons, spacing, materials and animations showing up across Settings, the status bar, Camera, Gallery, widgets and other system controls.
One change I noticed almost immediately was the new Geist typeface, which replaces the previous Inter font (the Roboto typeface hasn't been removed, though). This, combined with tweaks to text sizing, spacing and hierarchy, gives the interface a cleaner and more consistent appearance. It isn't a HUGE change on its own, but it contributes to the feeling that Nothing OS 5.0 has been polished across the board.
The Settings app has also been redesigned, with new icons, updated spacing and more consistent layouts. Categories feel better organised and commonly used sections are easier to spot at a glance. For example, the Digital Wellbeing and Parental Controls pages have now been separated. Meanwhile, the Sound and vibration sub-settings are also better categorised and easier to scan than before.
Image Credit: Beebom Gadgets
The redesign also extends into the Camera app, which gets updated icons, cleaner controls and more polished animations. I particularly liked the small improvement to QR code scanning. Once the camera recognises a QR code, the result now stays fixed on the screen instead of moving around with the code in the frame. That gives me a stable target to tap, rather than forcing me to keep the QR code perfectly aligned or risk having to scan it again (which was SUPER annoying).
The status bar has received a similarly subtle refresh. Nothing now uses custom-designed system icons alongside more expressive animations for things like signal, Wi-Fi and battery status. I am particularly fond of the new aeroplane mode animation, which sees the plane icon glide from the bottom into the status bar when enabled. When disabled, it flies out of the screen and that's super satisfying to watch.
The lock screen gets some attention too. Nothing OS 5.0 adds two new clockfaces, including the playful Gooey style and the more hardware-inspired Micrographics clock. I couldn't test Micrographics because it isn't available in the Open Beta yet, but the Gooey clock is available and gives the lock screen a noticeably different look. You can also match the clock's colour to your wallpaper from a selection of eight hues.
The Depth Effect has also been improved, with more control over how the subject of a wallpaper sits around the clock. I can now reposition and resize my wallpaper around the clock and other lock screen elements, giving me more control over how the image is framed.
If the wallpaper doesn't cover the entire screen after I adjust it, it automatically extends the edges with blur and translucent effects instead of leaving empty spaces. I found this a nice addition because it makes the lock screen feel more personalised without requiring much effort.
One of the changes I appreciated more is much simpler. You can now long-press the home screen, tap Arrange and move multiple icons or widgets together. I didn't think much about this when I first saw it, but reorganising a homescreen is noticeably easier when I don't have to move every icon individually.
I've used plenty of phones where small tasks like this can become unnecessarily tedious. So even though this isn't a feature I'd normally highlight in a major software update, I found myself using it.
In fact, there are quite a few Nothing OS 5.0 features like this that bring along some meaningful experiences, like the new widgets.
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The New Widgets Are More Useful than I Expected
Nothing has also added three new widgets, although I found some more useful than others.
The Collector widget is basically a way to put photos or other visual elements on the homescreen. It gives you a little more freedom to personalise the homescreen beyond simply arranging app icons and traditional widgets.
I like the idea, and I did try putting my Pokémon cards into it, although I'm not sure I'll continue using it long-term.
Away Time was more interesting to me. Most digital wellbeing features focus on telling you how much time you've spent using your phone. Away Time does the opposite. It shows how long you've gone without using your phone, along with your longest break of the day and a weekly trend.
I don't usually spend much time looking at screen-time dashboards. They tend to tell me how much I've used my phone and then remind me that I should probably use it less. Away Time feels different because it doesn't really tell me what I should do. I can't say it changed my habits in just days, but I did find myself checking it more often than I expected.
The Glyph Timer widget is another small addition I can see myself using. I can now start a Glyph Timer directly from the home or lock screen instead of opening the Glyph settings first. It's not a major feature, but it makes one of Nothing's more useful hardware-software integrations easier to access.
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Nothing OS 5.0 Makes the Glyph and Gallery Experiences More Useful
Talking about the Glyph, Nothing has also given Glyph features their own dedicated app in Nothing OS 5.0. Instead of digging through Settings to manage Glyph Interface/Glyph Matrix features, I can now jump straight into the Glyph app to access Glyph settings, Glyph Toys and more. It's a small change, but it makes the Glyph experience feel more self-contained and easier to access.
Nothing Gallery also gets a useful set of improvements. I can now sort the main Photos view by Recently added or Captured date and that preference is remembered across sessions. There are also filters for All, Favourites, Edited, Photos, Videos and Screenshots. I can also combine sorting and filtering rather than having to choose one or the other.
The Albums page has been cleaned up too. Frequently used albums can be given more prominence, while less-used ones are moved into a smaller section. I can long-press and drag albums to reorder them or move them between sections, or use Edit mode to manage multiple albums at once.
Although there are these improvements to the Gallery app, I still couldn't help but feel that it's a bit bare-bones in comparison to the gallery app of other Android skins. Either way, baby steps, I guess.
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The New Quick Settings Make More Sense to Me
Nothing OS 5.0 also changes Quick Settings and notifications, which are parts of Android I use constantly.
Notifications and Quick Settings are now separated. Swiping down from the left brings up notifications, while swiping from the right opens Quick Settings. The update also lets you move between the two panels with a left/right swipe once they're open, which makes things extra intuitive.
The layout is also more familiar if you've used iPhones or other iOS-inspired Android skins. The media player sits near the top, followed by connectivity controls, with the brightness and volume sliders given more space.
Nothing is clearly taking some cues from other interfaces here, but I don't really mind that. It works very well, and that's what matters.
The change I noticed most was actually Bluetooth. Previously, tapping a connected pair of earbuds from Quick Settings would take me into another submenu. Now, tapping the Bluetooth tile can disconnect connected devices directly.
That's a small change, but I use Bluetooth accessories almost every day. If I'm taking my earbuds out and don't want them connected anymore, being able to disconnect them without opening another menu is simply more convenient.
Additionally, because Nothing OS 5.0 is built on Android 17, there are also several platform-level features that aren't exclusive to Nothing. For starters, Quick Share can now work between Android and iOS, including through a QR code, while screen recording gets a more convenient floating control for managing recordings after they're finished.
Android 17 also brings Noto 3D Emoji, clearer privacy indicators for things like location, camera, microphone and AI activity, a redesigned Recents menu, separate volume control for the Assistant, better HDR brightness controls and an Expanded Dark Theme that can extend to more apps.
While these aren't major changes, they make Nothing OS 5.0 feel more complete as an Android 17 update. The Quick Share changes and clearer privacy indicators are probably the ones I'll notice most in regular use.
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Essential AI Is Useful in Some Places, but I Need More Time with It
Then there is Essential AI, which is one of the bigger aspects of Nothing's software strategy. I've become a little cautious about AI features on smartphones. A lot of them sound useful when they're announced but don't necessarily become part of my everyday routine.
Nothing OS 5.0 takes Essential AI in three main directions, and my experience with them has been mixed.
Essential Voice, for starters, is the feature I've found easiest to understand and use. The transcription and translation tools connected to the Essential Key now feel faster, with results appearing as I speak instead of making me wait until the entire recording is processed.
I can now also assign different actions to a long press and a double press of the Essential Key. That means I can keep transcription and translation on separate gestures instead of changing the button's function whenever I need something different.
I like this approach because the AI isn't really the point. The point is that a task I might already want to perform takes fewer steps.
Meanwhile, Essential Space gets Smart Collections, which automatically group related content instead of leaving everything as a long list of captured items. I haven't used it long enough to know whether it will genuinely change how I use Essential Space, but the idea makes sense to me.
Essential Apps Builder is more difficult for me to judge right now. The idea is that I can describe an app using natural language and have AI build it for me, after which I can add the resulting app to my homescreen.
It's an interesting concept, and although I was able to play around with it a bit, I'd want to use it for a few weeks and see whether I can actually create useful little tools with it. If it only works well for simple experiments, I'm not sure how valuable it will be. If it can reliably create apps that solve everyday problems, it could be much more interesting.
That's something I'll need to test properly.
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Nothing OS 5.0 Still Has Some Things to Improve
After spending a week with Nothing OS 5.0, I also noticed some things that haven't changed. While Nothing OS 5.0 looks considerably different from Nothing OS 4.1, underneath that redesign, though, some of the older limitations remain.
You still can't properly remap the Essential Key to any function you want. Lock screen widgets don't have third-party app support, while the lock screen music player and notification management don't feel as mature to me as what Samsung and Google offer.
None of these are major problems for me, but they're worth mentioning because a new visual design can make an operating system feel more complete than it actually is.
There's also a rollout caveat. Not everything Nothing has shown will be available in the Open Beta. The Micrographics clock face and fully redesigned homescreen are being held back until the general rollout in October 2026.
So if you're installing the Open Beta today on your Nothing Phone 3 and are expecting every Nothing OS 5.0 feature, you won't get the complete experience just yet.
Nothing OS 5.0 Review Verdict: Is It a Big Update?
Pros:
- Lucent design looks fresh and distinctive
- Better homescreen customisation
- Lock screen personalisation is much better
- Some new widgets are genuinely useful
- Dedicated Glyph app makes Glyph features easier to access
- Android 17 feature additions
Cons:
- Not all major Nothing OS 5.0 features are available yet
- Essential AI still feels like a work in progress
- Essential Key customisation remains limited
- Lock screen widgets still lack third-party app support
After a couple of days with Nothing OS 5.0, I’d say yes. The Lucent redesign is the most noticeable change, but the smaller refinements are what I found more useful in everyday use.
Being able to rearrange multiple homescreen elements, disconnect Bluetooth devices with fewer taps, and see how long I’ve stayed away from my phone are simple changes, but they make the experience more convenient.
Compared with Nothing OS 4.1, that makes it a meaningful update. Some of these ideas aren’t new to Android, but Nothing has integrated them well enough that I can see myself using them regularly.
I’ll reserve my final thoughts until the remaining features arrive with the stable rollout in October 2026. For now, Nothing OS 5.0 feels like a solid update where the smaller improvements matter more than the visual overhaul.
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