Google Pixels do a lot of things better than some of the best Android flagships. But only a few Pixel-exclusive features can match the practicality of the nifty At a Glance widget. This little home screen widget can show who’s at your door, your upcoming flight status, your order deliveries, and much more. Thanks to Google’s interconnected ecosystem, the At a Glance widget can now also show the timer you’ve set on your kitchen Nest Hub right on your Pixel phone’s home screen.
With this new addition, you don’t need to keep an ear out for the timer you’ve set for a perfect roast turkey. 9to5Google’s findings tell us that the At a Glance widget will sync any timer set on a connected Nest speaker and show you the status on your Pixel phone. The widget will display the remaining time along with the speaker's name for easy identification, as shown in the screenshot below. When the timer goes off, you will see a notification, allowing you to remotely stop the timer or extend it by another minute.
A new option called Cross Device Timer under At a Glance’s settings enables this handy timer feature. In the 9to5Google's case, the timer status appeared on its Pixel 7 Pro unit seconds after it was started on a Nest speaker. We haven’t seen the new option on any of our Pixel units yet, indicating a slow rollout for a feature that first appeared back in July. While the Pixel 7 series phones could be the first to receive the new cross-device timer, there’s no reason for other Pixel phones to be left behind.
Google has been proactively adding new tricks to the already capable At a Glance widget, with package delivery alerts and expanded weather view being the latest. It would be interesting to see what’s more in store for this widget in the Pixel Feature Drop coming out next month.