KurtKirstenpfad hey mate, welcome to the Nothing family and sorry to hear it’s not working as expected.
I’d check whether “Remove animations” are on in “Settings/Accessibility/Color and Motion”. If it’s on, turn it off, reboot your device and test whether Essential glyph is working or not.
If you continue to troubleshoot with no luck, I’d suggest contacting Nothing support. You can do that on your device by going to Settings > System > Feedback. State you’ve followed troubleshooting steps and the team should be able to assist you further.