You may remember the "Adaptive sleep" option that was spotted back with Android Q Beta 3. At the time, Google told us it was a placeholder for Android OEMs to use. According to some digging through the recent Android Q Beta 4 images by the folks at XDA Developers, the feature is now called "Screen attention," and it has picked up a new animation to go with it — that's an awful lot of work for Google to make on an OEM placeholder.
"Screen attention" animation found in Q Beta 4, same as the GIF above. (Source: XDA Developers)
Text attached to strings spotted in the teardown includes explicit descriptions of screen attention's functionality. It "Prevents your screen from turning off if you’re looking at it." Privacy concerns are also addressed, "Screen attention uses the front camera to see if someone is looking at the screen. It works on device, and images are never stored or sent to Google."
Screen attention sounds pretty similar to Samsung's Smart Stay, which debuted with the Galaxy SIII back in 2012.
Two technical requirements for the screen attention feature were spotted by XDA as well:
- The boolean framework value config_adaptive_sleep_available must be set to true.
- The calling app must hold the permission android.permission.CAMERA.
In short, almost all Android devices meet these requirements, including the Pixels currently being tested on Android Q Beta 4. Either Google is still hard at work implementing the new feature, and we're just spotting UI/UX details as they hit, or it's being held for later. (Pixel 4, anyone?)
Source: XDA Developers