It’s Distracted Driver Awareness Month, and automakers like GM are putting a focus on high-tech solutions to keep drivers safe behind the wheel.
Ever tried to answer a text from the passenger seat and felt your stomach turn before you reached the second line? For people prone to motion sickness, a phone can go from useful to unbearable fast.
Google is now rolling out a great Android tool designed to make that screen easier to tolerate while the vehicle moves. It is called Motion Assist, and it places animated dots around the edges of your screen that react to the motion of the vehicle.
Apple has offered a similar feature, Vehicle Motion Cues, since iOS 18 arrived in 2024. Google began working on its own version around the same time. It originally appeared under the name Motion Cues before Google renamed it Motion Assist. Now some Pixel owners are starting to see the finished feature on phones running Android 17.
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Google is rolling out Motion Assist, a new Android feature that uses animated screen cues to help reduce motion sickness for passengers using their phones in moving vehicles. (NickyLloyd via Getty Images)
Your eyes may tell your brain that you are sitting still and staring at a steady screen. Meanwhile, your inner ear can feel the car moving underneath you.
Those mixed signals can trigger motion sickness. The CDC says it can happen when what you see does not match the movement your body feels, which can leave you nauseous or dizzy.
Reading a text or scrolling through your phone can make things worse because your eyes stay focused on a screen that appears still while the car keeps moving.
Motion Assist gives your eyes another visual clue. Small shapes appear around the edges of the display while you continue using the app in the middle of the screen.
Your phone uses motion sensors, including its accelerometer and gyroscope, to follow changes in the vehicle. As the car turns or changes speed, the on-screen cues move along with that motion.
The goal is to give your eyes information that lines up more closely with what your body feels. That may reduce the sensory mismatch that can leave you reaching for the window button.
