When we first got a look at the Nothing Phone 1 in 2022, The Glyph — the lights on the back of the phone — seemed like a big ol’ gimmick. To its credit, Nothing did a decent job of making The Glyph kind of useful. For example, it doubles as a torch and has a charging animation to show the remaining time until it’s topped up. However, with the Nothing Phone 2, the lights jump from “gimmick” to “terrific.”
The Glyph on the back of the Nothing Phone 2 is slightly different from the one on the Phone 1. For example, there are almost three times as many LED nodes (we’ve gone from 12 on the Phone 1 to 33 on the Phone 2), and the LED strips themselves have been redesigned to be more symmetrical. Thankfully, these hardware changes won’t prevent most of The Glyph’s new features from coming to the Phone 1 since the software is what really makes the difference this time around.