I love the Essential Space on my Nothing 3A — it’s great for quick notes, or even brain dumping ideas using the voice recording and observing the summary later. This entire proposal was actually planned using the Essential Space! As I was testing around with it, I found that there were a few big changes that would make the experience better, with some being absolutely necessary. In order of priority are my proposed changes.
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1. Voice-Controlled Collection Assignment
Allow assigning or creating collections by voice command or input during capture.
Example: “Add this to Nothing Space.”
Automatically create the collection if it doesn’t exist.
Makes organizing content completely hands-free and fluid. I found this idea in the original demo video for the service, but it does not seem to work on my Nothing 3A.
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2. Copy & Edit Transcribed Notes
Improves flexibility and usability of saved content. I’ve seen this suggestion all over, so this isn’t new.
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3. Improved Essential Button Gestures
Add a tap-and-hold gesture to start a toggled voice recording.
Tap again to stop the recording.
Flipping the phone while recording in toggled mode would enter Glyph Mode, showing a visual countdown using the lights to indicate time remaining.
Makes long recordings easier without having to hold the button and provides a little more visual feedback.
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4. File Cleanup for Deleted Notes
- When deleting a note with a screenshot, also remove the associated image from the file system/gallery.
Even after deleting a temporary or accidental note, I then had to enter my gallery to then delete this photo. This could be another setting on a per user basis if necessary.
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5. Date Stamps on Notes
- Add a date stamp on each note (dot-matrix font at the bottom corner).
This feels like a natural addition, but its very easy to implement so lower priority.
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6. Screenshot Behavior Customization
By default, disable automatic screenshots during voice recording.
Let users tap the screen while holding the button to capture a screenshot manually.
A quick tap of the Essential Button should continue to take a screenshot + text note as usual.
I’ve taken so many accidental screenshots because I forgot to disable the screenshot when just doing a voice note, most of the time I use it for brainstorming, and then opt-in to a screenshot. This is a simple QOL feature, and could possibly be implemented as a setting to change the default for voice notes if individuals differ to my opinion.
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7. Local AI Processing Option
- Offer a setting to choose where AI runs:
- Locally on the device (slower)
- On a self-hosted server
- Or default to Nothing’s servers
Gives privacy-conscious users more control and reduces server load. This might be a little more difficult to implement, but it would be nice to have if my phone could operate these features even without an internet connection as a backup or a preferential choice.
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8. Extended Voice Recording Duration
Allow voice notes of up to 30–60 minutes.
Could be useful for long meetings or ideas.
However, this may not be necessary within Essential Space itself—a separate voice recording app could handle this, with the option to outsource AI transcription or integration.
Better left to external tools if it compromises Essential’s simplicity, but I do like the idea of this feature being usable inside of meetings. I understand the server load, so these kind of recordings could either be set to a lower priority on the server, or processed very slowly on the local phone. This is a lower priority feature, as this feature wouldn’t be entirely applicable to the majority of people, and again, might be better if outsourced outside of the essential space.
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9. Contextual AI for Collections
Allow users to “chat with a collection” using an AI assistant.
When a collection is open, the voice input or a dedicated chat box could send queries to an AI with that collection as context.
For performance, only summaries of the notes would be passed as context, not the full text.
This mode could be activated via the same voice gesture, but behave differently when a collection is open.
This is definitely a bit of a stretch and concern with server performance and cost, which is why it could be tied into the local AI processing choices, but I found it interesting in the context of the use of the Essential Space. Personally, I use it for simple brain dumps that I can come back to later to read a concise summary, and interpret useful reminders. But, as such with this writeup, I would have liked to “talk” to an AI within the collection of voice notes to get more ideas, or build upon it. I had to copy my notes (through screenshots due to lack of copy capability) into an external AI to analyze them further, so I think it is an interesting consideration.
I understand the cost implications, so it is not a necessary feature, but something to think about.
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I absolutely love the implementation of this feature. It’s actually the first set of AI tools that felt genuinely useful to me. While it’s still clearly in development, I really appreciate the direction the Nothing team is going in—both with software and the company as a whole. I’ve never enjoyed using a phone this much, but upon receiving this phone in the mail, I’ve been so excited to tinker with it and was pleasantly surprised by its quality given its price point. Glad to be part of the Nothing community.
