This App Will Make You Want to Use the HiLight Feature on Your Pixel 11 Pro.
When Google announced the Pixel 11 series last week , the company showed off a new “upgrade” for its Pro devices, including the Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold. “HiLight” is a small glowing circle located on the camera panel of these Pro Pixel devices, designed to passively alert users to incoming notifications when their phones are face-down. If the HiLight glows red, it could be a friend calling; if it glows blue, it could be Gemini processing your request. The color of the glow is up to you, but the basic idea is the same: if the HiLight is glowing, it means someone is calling you or Gemini is working.
Unfortunately, HiLight doesn’t do anything else by default, which feels like a missed opportunity for a completely new hardware feature. Google wants customers to spend more on a Pro device, and in return, it offers them only two features available only on the Pixel 11 Pro. And while assigning different colors to contacts certainly has some useful features, such as the ability to discreetly identify who’s calling without picking up the phone, HiLight has so many other capabilities that the current version feels seriously underdeveloped.
The HiLight Studio feature makes the Pixel 11 Pro’s LED backlight useful.
Introducing HiLight Studio , a new app from developer DhananjayBhosale. DhananjayBhosale’s announcement popped up in my X feed , and it immediately caught my attention. The developer created the app to fully utilize the capabilities of Google’s new hardware, even if Google itself doesn’t. With HiLight Studio, you can assign colors and effects to notifications from any app on your Pixel, not just contacts. Chrome notifications can be blue, WhatsApp notifications green, and so on. You can also choose any shade of any color Android supports, right down to the saturation and intensity levels.
There are also five lighting effects to choose from: Rainbow, Comet, Pulse, Breathing, and Wave, as well as Random for a surprise. These effects go beyond just a solid color: notifications can be illuminated with a rainbow HiLight or pulsate red. You can choose how long the colors and effects stay on after each notification, and when to prevent HiLight from activating (for example, when the screen is off, in Do Not Disturb mode, or when the battery reaches a specified percentage). You can save your presets and export them to other apps, and access the settings from the Quick Settings tile.
To be clear, this isn’t an app you can download from the Play Store. Instead, you need to install an APK file from GitHub, which in turn requires command-line access to your Pixel’s backlight service. This involves setting it up via either Shizuku or ADB. DhanajayBhosale has instructions for each method, but keep in mind that this is a more technical approach than simply sideloading an app. Fortunately, it doesn’t require rooting your Pixel.