OnePlus Releases HydrogenOS 11 with Lots of New Features Including Always-on Display and More

OnePlus today officially released HydrogenOS 11 based on Android 11 in China. Through its Chinese forum post, OnePlus unveiled HydrogenOS 11, that’s notably, the Chinese version of the company’s custom UI (User Interface). The new version of HydrogenOS 11 comes with lots of new features, design changes and improvements, including the highly anticipated Always-on Display feature.

It’s worth noting here that, OnePlus CEO and co-founder Pete Lau last week announced that the final developer preview build of OxygenOS 11 will be released on August 10 for the rest of the world.

According to the forum post, the latest release of the HydrogenOS 11 comes along with the third Android 11 developer preview build for OnePlus 8 series in China and its currently in its early stage.

HydrogenOS 11 New Features

While announcing during a live stream yesterday, August 10, OnePlus also showcased several new features, design changes and other improvements of the HydrogenOS 11 based on Android 11. All these features are also expected to come to OxygenOS 11 for other regions including India.

As one of the highly anticipated feature, the HydrogenOS 11 based on Android 11 brings the new Always-on-Display feature. The design of how the new Always-on-Display features look is designed in collaboration with Parsons College in the US.

• Always-on-Display

The Always-on-Display feature on the HydrogenOS 11 appears as a vertical line in the middle of the screen. The line shows you the passing time moving from top to bottom. It’s a Digital Watch that appears on the Always-on-Display as a vertical line design. As you can see on the image above, there are two more watch face designs which users will be able to set on the Always-on-Display.

• Gallery App

The Gallery app on the HydrogenOS 11 comes with a new design and slightly changed to the layout of how the images and videos appear in the Gallery app.

• Weather App:

The Weather App has also been redesigned where you will now see new animations based on different weather conditions.

• Improved dark mode:

HydrogenOS 11 improves the dark mode even further and adds a shortcut switch for dark mode. The new improved dark mode can now also be set to turn on automatically at a certain time or according to sunset and sunrise.

• Photo Album

The photo album now supports new week review function, that automatically creates videos combining images taken to form a certain period. The features work similarly to Google Photos.

• Mutual Transfer

It also adds a mutual transfer feature that allows you to share files to devices near you, including devices from OPPO, Vivo, Realme, Xiaomi, Meizu and other brands.

The HydrogenOS 11 also brings one-handed mode for better usability with one hand, a new live wallpaper. The colour of the wallpaper changes according to the changes in the sky.

There are also three new themes included in the Meditation mode (ocean, space, grassland), improved voice notes with support for speech-to-text conversion, and more. You can find more changelog and features added into the HydrogenOS 11 here.

According to ITHome reports, the HydrogenOS 11 update will be available for the OnePlus 6 and newer OnePlus devices starting mid-December 2020. As of now, the Developer Preview build of the HydrogenOS 11 update based on Android 11 is available now to download for the OnePlus 8 series with the stable version said to release in Q4 this year.