Android 17 adds moving dots to ease car sickness

Thomas Ricker says he can work from the passenger seat of a moving van without becoming sick when he activates Google’s Motion Assist, which uses moving dots around the edge of the display to reduce motion sickness inside a vehicle.

The problem is a disagreement between the eyes and the inner ear. A phone presents a static image while the body feels the car turn, brake and accelerate. Motion Assist taps the phone’s accelerometer and gyroscope, then moves the dots to mirror that motion: during a right turn, they sweep left; under braking, they slide forward. Google says the approach has been shown to reduce, and sometimes eliminate, motion sickness.

The feature is similar to Apple’s Motion Cues, introduced in 2024. Google lets people adjust the dots’ opacity and choose among different shapes and colors. Motion Assist can start automatically when it detects a moving vehicle, or be activated from a tile in Quick Settings.

The rollout is phased. Some Pixel phones are receiving Motion Assist first, while the feature had not appeared on two Pixel devices tested by The Verge. Users who do have access can look in Google Settings under “Your Profile” and “All Services.”

So what changes in practice? For passengers who usually have to put their phone away, the feature could make reading or working during a journey possible again. Ricker reports that it works for him and his wife, but the current evidence in this account is a personal experience alongside Google’s stated basis for the feature—not a universal guarantee for every traveler or device.