5 Accessibility Features You Didn't Know Were in the Palm of Your Hand

5 Accessibility Features You Didn't
Know Were in the Palm of Your Hand

These cool One UI 4 features¹ can help supercharge your phone.

Two friends laying on the ground together in opposite directions, looking up at a smartphone one of the men is holding, smiling while the sun shines down upon them.

In the 21st century, technology helps bring us together. That's why accessibility features are so important. They're the number-one tool we have to make sure our phones can be used by anyone, no matter their permanent, temporary or situational disability.

Accessibility isn't just cool because it's the right thing to do. Accessibility settings are also where you’ll find some of your Galaxy smartphone’s most innovative features. These options will not only help supercharge your phone if you're managing a disability, they'll make devices like your Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G more powerful and fun to use no matter who you are.

A man standing in a darkened street looking at his phone, and blurry lights are shown behind him. A side-panel shows us what he is viewing: Galaxy smartphone's Visibility enhancements accessibility page, with options to improve the contrast of the text on-screen as well as trigger other options for enhanced visibility.

Visibility enhancements

Visibility is a spectrum. What is readable for one person is often illegible for another. Plus, our own ability to see what’s on our smartphone screen can shift throughout the day. But no matter what your capabilities, One UI’s Visibility enhancement settings have you covered. If you find it hard to read your phone, you can switch on High contrast fonts, keyboards and themes. Likewise, if you have difficulty seeing your phone in the dark, you can make your display Extra dim. And if you experience partial colour blindness, you can even adjust the colours of your screen, or invert them completely, depending on your preference.

A woman standing on a darkened balcony during blue hour against a window looks at her phone. A side-panel shows us what she is viewing: Galaxy smartphone's Accessibility button settings page, allowing her to turn on a floating button to access One UI's more common accessibility features with a single tap.

Customise your buttons

With One UI, changing your accessibility features on the fly is easier than ever. Turn on Accessibility button, and you can choose between a new floating button or a fixed navigation button that will allow you to enable your accessibility features no matter what app you’re using. With a quick tap, you can turn on accessibility features like TalkBack (which reads out loud what's on your screen) or Magnification (which magnifies what's on your screen for easier viewing). Prefer your buttons hard and clicky? You can also use Advanced settings to program your Galaxy smartphones to launch accessibility features by holding down the volume buttons.

Live Transcribe

Even if it's just trying to hear a friend in a loud restaurant, we could all use captions now and then. That's why Live Transcribe is so amazing. Just turn it on under Hearing enhancements in your Galaxy smartphone’s Accessibility settings, and the sounds around you will be captioned on your screen like a video, even buzzing your phone when your name is mentioned. Pair that functionality with a Galaxy Z Flip3 5G positioned so only you can see it, and you'll never be taken by surprise while zoning off in a team meeting again.

*Google processes your conversations but never stores them.

A woman fast asleep in her bed with a smartphone in the foreground. The screen is out-of-focus, but on, showing that it is listening for sounds to alert her to. On the right side, a screenshot of Sound Notifications Live View panel is shown. It shows a timeline of the sounds that One UI has detected over the past twelve hours.

Sound Notifications

Have you ever been eagerly waiting for a package, only to miss the sound of the delivery person ringing the doorbell? Or are you an exhausted new parent nervous that you might accidentally sleep through the sound of your baby crying? Check out Sound Notifications under One UI's Hearing enhancements accessibility setting or Turn On Sound Notifications in your Live Transcribe app, and you can have your Galaxy alert you with a flashing light or vibration if it hears anything you don’t want to miss, whether that's your microwave beeping or a three-alarm fire. That's obviously useful functionality if you experience deafness, but even if you don't have hearing loss, Sound Notifications offer peace of mind that you won't accidentally miss something important in a world of competing sounds.

A person using Bixby Vision functionality on a Galaxy smartphone to be told that their smartphone is currently pointing at a dog standing on a field of green grass. A screenshot of the settings panel next to the photograph shows Bixby Vision options, including the ability to have a scene described, text read aloud, colours detected, and more.

Screen image simulated for illustrative purposes.

See with Bixby Vision²

Ever want to see the world the way a computer sees it? Turn on Bixby Vision, and Galaxy's powerful virtual assistant and on-board AI will use your camera as its eyes. If you’re not disabled, it can do things like give you tasting notes on a bottle of wine you are drinking.³ (When was the last time AI was your sommelier?) And if you are visually impaired, Bixby Vision will narrate the world around you by describing a sunset, identifying whether you’re holding a lemon or a lime, giving you the colour of the dress you’re wearing, or even reading a sign to you.

Ready to level up your Galaxy?

Here are some other great accessibility features you’ll find in One UI.

Customisable flash notifications

Magnification

Corner actions

Voice Access⁴

¹One UI 4 update schedule may vary by device, country or operator. Please find the schedule for One UI upgrades from Notices on the Samsung Members app. Samsung Members app is available on the Galaxy Store. Samsung Account log-in and data network connection (Wi-Fi or data network) required.
²Currently available with Galaxy S21/S21+/S21 Ultra/A52/Xcover Pro/A32/Xcover 5/Tab A7 Lite WiFi/Tab A7 Lite LTE/Tab S7 Lite WiFi/Tab S7 Lite 5G/A22 5G/M32/A12/Z Fold 3/Z Flip 3/Tab S7 Lite WiFi/M22/A52s 5G/S10 Lite/S20/S20+/S20 Ultra (5G)/Z Flip/Tab S6 Lite (WiFi)/Tab S6 Lite (LTE)/Tab S7 (WiFi)/Tab S7 (LTE)/Tab S7+ (WiFi)/Tab S7+ (5G)/Note20 (LTE)/Note20 (5G)/Note20 Ultra(5G)/Tab A7 (WiFi)/Tab A7 (LTE)/Z Fold2 (5G)/S20 FE (5G)/Z Flip (5G)/A42 (5G)/Tab Active 3 (WiFi)/Tab Active 3 (LTE)/S10e/S10/S10+. Data network connection (Wi-Fi or data network) required.
³Data network connection (Wi-Fi or data network) required.
⁴As of November 2021, available in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish only.