Throughout my hands-on preview of the Pixel 11 Pro, I used to be fairly hyped about HiLight and the way the coloured, flashing gentle positioned on the smartphone’s rear digicam bar might assist me triage my notifications. I am at all times on the lookout for methods to disconnect from the digital world, and HiLight appeared like a wise method to try this. However after spending extra time with Google’s flagship smartphone and attempting the function briefly for myself, it is clearly an enormous miss by the tech big — not less than proper now.
Whereas I assumed I might be capable to set totally different HiLight colours for varied kinds of notifications, together with e mail and textual content messages, you’ll be able to presently use it solely to point calls out of your favourite contacts — and even then, you’ll be able to choose from simply one in every of 5 colours. HiLight additionally flashes while you’re speaking to Gemini, indicating that the AI assistant is listening.
HiLight nonetheless holds quite a lot of potential
An app that enables for extra customization already exists, but it surely is not simple to put in
Perhaps it was a bit naive of me to imagine Google would allow you to achieve this a lot with HiLight immediately, however on the time it made quite a lot of sense, particularly given how a lot the corporate talked in regards to the function throughout my hands-on preview of the smartphone.
Why Google determined to launch the Pixel 11 Professional and HiLight with this odd limitation, we’ll doubtless by no means know. Google says that utilizing HiLight for messages out of your favorite contacts is coming, but it surely’s unclear when it would truly launch. It is also unclear if it would ever formally be appropriate with third-party apps, which may be very disappointing.
Then there’s HiLight Studio, an app that pushes the function additional, permitting per-app notifications, extra colours, and even management over options like brightness, timing, and saturation. Sadly, this is not an app you’ll be able to obtain from the Play Retailer and set up in your Pixel 11 Professional, which considerably limits its viewers. It is advisable allow developer settings, sideload it from GitHub, after which set up a number of extra apps to get it working. An app like HiLight Studio being out there immediately within the Play Retailer might fill the hole in HiLight performance, however like so many different issues associated to the coloured flashing gentle, it is unclear if that may ever occur.
Let’s get the plain out of the best way. HiLight is not precisely a brand new thought. There are a couple of latest examples of comparable smartphone options, together with Nothing’s devices and their Glyph interfaces and Asus’ ROG Phone 8 and 9’s wacky AniMe Vision. Nonetheless, for me, it comes again to the long-lasting BlackBerry Curve 8300 and the small multi-colored LED indicator close to the highest of the telephone (a number of BlackBerry units featured a flashing LED indicator).
Approach again within the mid-2000s, you might set totally different colours for e mail, SMS, and BBM, and in case you needed to take issues a step additional, there have been third-party apps that allowed you to create enjoyable patterns and flash particular lights for apps and contacts. I keep in mind setting my BlackBerry Curve 8300 to flash purple, blue, and inexperienced when texts from particular contacts got here by way of. It was not solely enjoyable, but in addition very helpful.
It allowed me to pop my telephone partially out of my pocket on the division retailer I labored at (sure, we weren’t speculated to have our telephones on the shop ground), covertly examine the notification gentle, and slide it again in my pocket if I did not see an vital colour flashing. In a contemporary context, it could be nice to depart my Pixel 11 Professional face down on my desk and have HiLight flash particular colours when my associate texts me or once I obtain an vital e mail in Gmail, simply as two easy examples.
Why a contemporary smartphone launched in 2026 does not supply something near this performance is really perplexing. Perhaps Google simply ran out of improvement time on the Pixel 11 Professional and wanted to launch the function in its present state to satisfy the deadline. Both method, it is very disappointing that what might have been a low-key killer function is principally virtually ineffective in its present type.
HiLight is in dire want of a glow-up
Hopefully, Google is listening to the criticism surrounding the function
Along with being appropriate with its personal apps, Google must open HiLight to third-party builders by way of an API, making it simple for app creators so as to add the performance to their apps. On the very least, it wants a few of HiLight Studio’s key customization options, together with the flexibility to vary the sunshine’s colour, brightness, and timing.
Past that, I might see HiLight getting used for extra inventive duties, like monitoring restocks of sought-after merchandise or when an inexpensive flight seems. It might even activate when a video has been uploaded to YouTube or Google Drive, or flash a selected colour when it is time to go away for an appointment. In some methods, HiLight’s potential is boundless in permitting you to disconnect out of your Pixel 11 Professional’s display whereas nonetheless staying on prime of particular notifications.
Hopefully, Google feels the identical method and continues to replace HiLight with new options.
