Samsung One UI 7 Now Bar: Everything you need to know

Samsung has introduced One UI 7 beta with a new feature called Now Bar and it aims to improve your interactions with key tasks while increasing one-hand reachability across the screen.

Innovating new features for software has become a big challenge for smartphone companies. They either fetch it from each other’s domain or just polish the existing ones from the previous OS version.

However, the One UI 7 has marked a major shift in Samsung’s core software feature guideline by adding the Now Bar. It enables users to stay updated with certain apps and ongoing background activities without unlocking the smartphone.

Samsung reshaped the One UI software skin for Galaxy smartphone users. This approach does not only appear in the user interface but is also implemented into its features and Now Bar is a great example of these new implementations.

What’s Now Bar

This tiny pill-shaped widget appears at the bottom of the lock screen. It sits between the two shortcut buttons and expands wide to make use of the entire space between to show you key live info at a glance.

Now Bar works with numerous applications and services including:

• Clock (Stopwatch and Timer)
• Voice Recorder
• Emergency sharing
• Music
• Modes and Routines
• Samsung Health
• Interpreter
• Google maps
• Samsung Notes
• Bixby voice assistant

For example, the reminder and stopwatch have their own Now Bars. All you need to do is to start one of these send it into the background or lock the device.

When you wake the device, the Now bar will show you essential details including a timer and a pause/resume button. The UI will include an icon to show the app activity.

Samsung One UI 7 Now Bar

Each Now Bar has its own features including:

• Interpreter – Shows translation status
• Music – Includes music playback controls (play/pause, next, and prev), the UI has album art and title
• Health – Shows the exercise type and health metrics
• Modes and Routines – Shows the selected mode and routine
• Emergency Sharing – Shares the status of the emergency protocol set in your smartphone

The rest of the Now Bar offers functionalities such as notification or minimalistic options.

Samsung One UI Now Bar

Stacking

You can start different Now Bar-supported activities simultaneously and see them on the lock screen. Use the swipe gesture on top of a Now Bar and it will reveal the one behind. This will continue in a cycle as one Now Bar will stack behind the other each time swap their positions.

Tip – You can identify a stack with a slight shadow beneath the Now Bar.

Now Bar Stack

Expansion

That’s not it, Samsung One UI 7 Now Bar supports expansion. With this, you can maximize its appearance and controls on a large scale with a tap.

For instance, the Music Now Bar will expand to a full-size lock screen widget with playback buttons and album art. When you tap on a blank space, the widget will shrink back.

Now Bar Expansion

Conclusion

Now Bar is a real deal for One UI users but it’s only available for a couple of apps. This functionality should expand to more system services and applications to improve the user experience. We may see third-party developers using this API for their apps in the near future.

As for now, Samsung is sending this feature with the One UI 7 upgrade starting with the Galaxy S24 series and it will be available for all eligible devices.