Google’s At a Glance feature really never took off on most Android devices. Part of the reason for that is Google focused much of its efforts here on Pixel devices. Where non-Pixel devices only get a slimmed-down version of the app, Pixel owners have full access to all of the features found in At a Glance.
But what is At a Glance?
On your Android home screen, you should see a widget, near the top, that displays the time, the weather, and maybe your upcoming Google Calendar event.
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But what if you could have even more information presented within that widget? If you have a Pixel phone, that can be a reality. You can enable/disable any of the following options:
- Earthquake alert
- Package delivery
- Ridesharing
- Bedtime
- Fitness
- Safety check
- Time & stopwatch
- Connected devices
- Doorbell
- Flashlight
- Commute
- Time to leave
- Weather
- Air quality
- Alerts
- Travel
- Upcoming
- Work profile
- Food and household orders
- Cross-device timer
Obviously, not every one of these options will apply. For instance, where I live, there’s no need for Earthquake alerts. Maybe a tornado alert would be nice.
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You can also enable/disable sensitive notifications (to prevent sensitive information from being displayed in At a Glance) and location history, and set your home and work locations.
Once you’ve experienced how handy At a Glance can be, you’ll wonder how you went without customizing it all this time.
So, how do you customize At a Glance on a Pixel device? It’s actually quite easy. Let me show you.
Customizing Pixel’s At a Glance
What you’ll need: The only thing you’ll need for this is a Google Pixel device. At a Glance was added starting with the Pixel 3, so most Pixel owners should be good to go.
The first thing you must do is unlock your Android phone.
Long-press the At a Glance widget, which will most likely be displaying the weather and your current or upcoming Google Calendar event. From the resulting popup menu, tap Customize.
I depend on At a Glance daily. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
On the next page, tap the gear icon associated with At a Glance.
You can also enable/disable notification dots from this section. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
If you are concerned about privacy, you might want to disable sensitive content for A a Glance. To do that, tap Sensitive content. In the resulting page, you can then tap the On/Off slider for Sensitive notifications until it’s in the Off position.
If you don’t want sensitive content shown in At a Glance, you’ll want to disable it. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Go back to the At a Glance page and then scroll through the various listings and enable or disable as needed. You’ll also see, at the bottom of this page, a listing for “See more features”. Once you’ve gone through the first listing, tap that entry.
You’ll find a number of options here to enable or disable. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
On the resulting page, you can access more customizations, such as your location history, home and work locations, traffic, severe weather alerts, and more.
There’s quite a bit more configurations to be had for At a Glance. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
I would recommend going through every section of the At a Glance customization and enabling the features you want and disabling those you don’t need. You’ll probably find some of the information simply isn’t applicable to you and there’s no reason to clog up the widget with unnecessary data.
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And that’s everything you need to know about customizing the Pixel At a Glance feature. Hopefully, someday, Google will add all of the At a Glance to Android versions running on non-Pixel devices. Until then, if this is a feature you’d like to have, maybe it’s time to migrate to a Pixel phone.
Jack Wallen: Here’s how to…
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