Nothing – the tech company founded by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei – unveiled the design of its first smartphone, phone (1), earlier this month. This week, the London-based startup also showed off what it calls the Glyph Interface.
Essentially, these are lights sited at the back of phone (1) that will be synced to flash in unique patterns to every custom sound. With its transparent back, you can see the lights being lit up around the camera module, wireless charging area as well as the top right and bottom part. In fact, Nothing has been teasing it in plain sight as you can see below.
With this Glyph Interface, you can pair different contacts to different ringtones, each with its own Glyph pattern. This allows you to know who is calling, the type of notifications and its charging status.
If you want to be more productive, Nothing says you can just flip phone (1) with the Glyph Interface facing up to trigger silent mode with lights-only notifications. You can also set a daily schedule for the lights to automatically turn off.
Nothing says there will be more features and customisations of the Glyph Interface, with support for third-party developers. Famed tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee was given exclusive access to the phone (1) and he was able to demonstrate a wee bit of how the Glyph Interface works.
You can sign up here to get notified about the Nothing phone (1). With the Singapore URL, it looks like Singapore will be getting the phone (1). But it has been confirmed that this smartphone will not enter the US market.
While the Nothing phone (1) might look like an iPhone 12 with a transparent back initially, it is looking to be a breath of fresh air from the increasingly lookalike smartphones in the market. The full reveal of the new smartphone will take place on July 12, 11pm SGT.