Let's talk about Glyphs

Zac 🛸

Hey Community,

At Nothing, we believe your phone shouldn’t control you. Notifications should keep you up-to-date without pulling you away from life. That’s the philosophy behind our Glyph Interface. With custom light patterns, it tells you what’s happening without having to look at your screen.

The Glyph Bar and Glyph Matrix are designed to reduce distractions, not add to them. Important alerts, at a glance, without the doom scroll. It’s a different way of being present, and on Phone (4a) and Phone (4a) Pro, it’s better than ever.

Phone (4a) Pro

The Glyph Matrix on Phone (4a) Pro is built with 137 precision mini-LEDs and is 57% larger while being twice as bright as Phone (3)'s. That’s not a minor upgrade, that’s flagship-grade hardware at a mid-range price.

The Glyph Matrix isn’t just a light show. It’s a properly useful layer of information that lives on the back of your phone, so you can put the screen down and actually get on with your day.

Essential Notifications lets you assign discreet icons to specific contacts or keywords, so the people and messages that matter stand out, clearly for you, quietly for everyone else. Your phone face-down on the table, your Matrix lighting up with the icon you set for your best friend.
Progress-based notifications sync with your screen. Waiting on an Uber? Tracking a delivery? Counting down a timer? It’s all right there on the back, intuitive lights and motion cues that mean you can follow along without picking your phone up. Supported apps include Uber, Google Calendar, Zomato, Just Eat, and Google Maps, with more integrations on the way.
The Matrix also doubles as a daily tool: digital clock display, battery status tracking, solar path visualization, timer, camera countdown, and a selfie mirror. And of course, there’s always the Glyph Toy. For when you just want to enjoy it.

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Phone (4a)

The Glyph Bar on Phone (4a) features 63 precision mini-LEDs, up to 40% brighter than Phone (3a) Pro. Each square has 9 individual zones inside for smooth, detailed light patterns. It’s finished with a red recording light square at the base, a first for our (a) series line.

The Glyph Bar is an evolution of our Glyph interface just as much as our Glyph Matrix is. Using an all new way of displaying information while being our most focused and compact version yet, the Glyph Bar is there to help you when you need it, without distracting you when you don’t.

Essential Notifications allows for signals only you understand. Assign discreet Glyph bar patterns to specific contacts or keywords in Essential Notifications, so important notifications stand out, clearly for you, quietly for everyone else.
Progress tracking works just like it does on Phone (4a) Pro, only more compact. The Glyph Bar uses 9 Leds in each square to create a smooth gradient when showing progress for apps like Uber, Google Calendar, Zomato, Just Eat, and Google Maps, with more to come.

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🛠️ Community Creations

The Community has already been hard at work creating some all new Glyph Toys on the Phone (4a) Pro, here is a small selection of the incredible work they’ve already done.

Dice

“Give it a roll!”

Developer: Paul Gesekus

Counter

“Counter displays numbers from 0–99 via the Glyph Matrix, then loops back to 0. Tilt left or right to decrease or increase the counter, or shake your device to reset.”

Developer: Daniel Mashukov

Charging Hamster

Developer: Rahul Janardhanan and Thomas Legendre

Call Status

“A new way to shush people when you’re on a phone call”

Developer: Abhishek Lakhani

Star Map

“Glance up! Star Map tracks the nearest constellation to you, slowly turning overhead as the hours drift by, until the stars shift and a new one takes its place.”

Developer: Francesco Berti

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Drop a comment below and let us know which feature you find yourself using most! 👇

Daniel

Zac 🛸 Had an absolute blast updating my Counter Glyph Toy to support the new Matrix. Thanks to the team for making the developer kit widely accessible and easy to develop with! ✌️

PREET AJMERI

Zac 🛸 Honestly, I loved all the Glyph Toys created by our community members; they’re all creative in their own way. But the Charging Hamster is my personal favorite. It turns the boring charging process into something fun and engaging. Huge shout-out to Rahul and Thomas for bringing this brilliant idea to life! 🐹⚡

shaileshjamnik111

Zac 🛸 Really cool glyphs . I am already fan of nothing creativity and their people who making it . Guys you are doing a wonderful work

Nicouschulas

Zac 🛸
Glyph lights where farrrr better

jhon-bxYOuRot2y

woah!

ChrisJ

@Zac 🛸 Hey the new glyph matrix is so cool , proving The statement “bigger the better”, honestly more playful than phone (3) but as in case of glyph matrix development , Users will appreciate more if we are let to publish simple animations WITHOUT any trigger (like charging or calling ….) natively within Playground just as we are able to create essential apps. This would be much appreciated by users like me who have some ideas but not able to publish one

Paul_gsk

Thanks for featuring me. Had a lot of fun during development. I think the Glyph Matrix is really great. Having to work with a limited space and controls makes creative.

Mohd_Isham

can we use the same glyph toys that were of np3 to np4a-pro

Vishwam

Great post Zac. Mentions everything about Glyphs for 4a series in Detail. I am also working on 4a pro features and toys for my app. And congratulations to everyone who got featured

huttonstephen5

“ At Nothing, we believe your phone shouldn’t control you. Notifications should keep you up-to-date without pulling you away from life” So why have you introduced a pointless distracting glyph matrix? The glyph lights are more than sufficient, as a silent notification…..enough said, it was a little amusing, but it’s time to move on and focus on more important functions!

SunnyS_TUspqZguh7

Zac 🛸 As an Apple User for the last 5 years as every company has stopped innovation and fear to bring new things in the market, gotta appreciate Nothing for being so committed to giving something new to its users

Have used all the Nokia Lumias, The Blackberries, Huawei Flagships, LG Nexus and a lot more as I come from the same industry I was looking forward to use the 4A Pro and bot it didnt disappoint, It gives the premium feel as soon as you hold it, All the features which are of daily use and no excess and unwanted stuff like other brands in that segment.

Stand Out Design, Lightweight feel in hand and Pleasing to the eyes.

Fr4nKB

Zac 🛸 thank you so much for making me part of this initiative, as always I had a blast working with you guys! 🙏🏻

That said, please also cite the designers for the Star Map toy: Andrea Fanelli and Emre Kayganaci.

aFriendNamed5

Has anyone found a hacky way of getting the glyph matrix to light up when Hey Google/Gemini is activated? That’d be super handy. I use MacroDroid so am happy to build something there if anyone knows of anything that’ll work?

Aleks Levet

aFriendNamed5 that was one of the default Glyph features on the Phone 1, by the way. A little voice meter for the Google Assistant. It still works now.

aFriendNamed5

Aleks Levet yeah, I’m wanting something similar for the matrix on the 4a Pro. Seems odd that Nothing left it out, along with the music visualiser.

GrandVishnu

With the specs upgrade of the phone series itself, they weren’t able to add everything to a single tier series; it will become a more complicated thing to the back door, since tho the glyph bar in 4a makes quite an action and recognizable, makes it unique and makes it more often curious to use it, how can we customise it, etc., pro version slightly maxed the glyph matrix dim, it is also good thing as a design perspective and makes us expecting to be in different sizes and shapes in future. Along with that, we will be getting different features for our daily and own usage, obviously make things better. Phosphorescence + glyph lights + glyph matrix + glyph bar +…, more surprises in upcoming launches, these all combine, it will be the craziest thing in the market. Often need to try this one time and make it happen, just out of curiosity, excited about nothing. Nothing changes if nothing changes anything. This is my first community reply,idk if I misled or mistyped something, my apologies. Even though I don’t have a device from nothing. But I’m admiring nothing the brand itself for everything. I like nothing more than anything, and every product from nothing more than anything ☺😅😇

WerWolv

Managed to get two fun things working on my Phone!

First one is a fully functioning Fluid Simulation with water that sloshes around when you move the phone

Second one is, obligatory, Bad Apple