We first saw Google’s Project Soli radar at I/O a few years back, and it seemed magical. The version that just launched on the Pixel 4 is somewhat… less magical. It only does a few things, and it doesn’t even work in many parts of the world. Google is trying hard to convince us that Motion Sense is useful, though. Its latest attempt comes in the form of a DJ “music experiment,” and it’s impressively bad.
Google designed this custom rig of eight Pixel 4 devices for DJ Felo to trigger during the song, and that’s it. That’s all Motion Sense does in this demo.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNGhsr4wmyQ?feature=oembed&w=668&h=376]
As you can see, the DJ just swipes to trigger pre-programmed effects. I don’t buy that they needed eight phones to accomplish this, but there’s no threshold at which this becomes cool. There could be 100 phones on this rig, and it would be equally silly because Motion Sense isn’t doing anything unique here. It’s less efficient to wave at eight phones than it would be to press a few buttons.
https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/11/15/google-video-shows-off-a-pixel-4-motion-sense-dj-setup-its-as-awkward-as-it-sounds/