The gesture navigation It is one of the great novelties included in Android 10. New functionalities have also been included such as integrated subtitles, system-level dark mode or intelligent responses, although for most users this is the feature that attracts the most attention. since it completely changes the way we interact with our device.
Would you like to be able to use the gestures of Android 10 but you have an old mobile? In today's tutorial we explain how to get iton any Android device, regardless of the version of the operating system that we are using.
This is how gesture navigation works in Android 10
Before you start making changes to your phone, it is important to know what exactly “gesture navigation” means. Basically, it consists of replacing the 3 tactile buttons on the navigation bar (the “Back”, “Home” and “Applications” buttons of a lifetime) with gestural controls like these:
- Swipe from the side: Go back.
- Drag from bottom to top: Start.
- Swipe from the bottom and hold in the middle area: Open multitasking.
- Swipe from left to right: Switch between applications.
How to enable gesture navigation in older versions of Android
Currently there are several applications that allow us to implement gesture navigation on any Android. In the tutorial "How to activate the navigation by gestures of the iPhone X in Android" that we published last year we used the app "Navigation Gestures" developed by XDA-Developers. This time we could also use the same tool, but in this case (and to see that there are also other options) we are going to use the “Fluid Navigation Gestures” app. A very similar utility that enjoys an excellent evaluation by the community. Let's see how it works!
Step # 1: Install Fluid Navigation Gestures
Fluid Navigation Gestures is one of the gesture control apps most popular for Android. It is officially available through Google Play and is completely free. It also has a premium version, but to achieve our goal with the freeware version we have more than enough.
Download QR-Code Fluid Navigation Gestures Developer: Francisco Barroso Price: Free Step # 2: Activate gesture navigation
Once we have the application installed, we open "Fluid Navigation Gestures" and on the main screen we activate the tab that says "Enabled”. A new window will automatically open where we will have to give the pertinent permissions to the application: “Mshow over other apps" and "Accessibility service”.
Step # 3: Customize gesture navigation to match Android 10
Now that we have all the cards on the table, we only have to configure Fluid Navigation Gestures to adapt the same gestures that are used in Android 10 navigation. To do this, we enter the configuration menus of "Bottom edge”, “Right edge" and "Left edge”, And we follow the following guidelines.
- Bottom edge: Upon entering this menu we will see 3 blue rectangles with a gear icon at the bottom of the screen. The blue area represents the area where we can execute the gestures, and the gears are what allow us to decide what action is carried out when we pass our finger through that blue area. That said, we click on the gear that appears in the middle (labeled as “Action # 2"), We choose"Swipe quickly"And in the next menu we select"Beginning”. Then we repeat this same process with the gears on the left and right.
- Left edge: In the settings menu on the left edge, click on the gear button. In the countryside "Swipe quickly"We choose"Behind", And in the field"Swipe and hold"We select"None”. Within the settings menu on the left edge, we must also click on "Swipe up”And assign the action“Voice assistant”. Finally, it is also advisable to increase the sensitivity in case our Android has a curved screen, since that will help us to better detect movements.
- Right edge: In the case of the right edge, we will repeat the same steps performed in the left edge settings.
Once the adjustments of the 3 edges are completed, we will be able to use the Android 10 gestures on our mobile or tablet. In any case, if we want to imitate the navigation system 100%, we would still have one more point: eliminate the navigation bar that occupies the bottom of our screen.
Step # 4: Disable the navigation bar using ADB commands
Of course, we don't need to do this, but it can be a nice icing to complete the cake. Some mobiles allow you to remove the virtual navigation bar (we can check it in the system settings), although in most cases we will need a PC (and a USB cable) with which to apply a couple of ADB commands.
Note: You can see how to install and use ADB on your Windows computer in this other TUTORIAL.
Once we have connected the mobile and the PC has recognized it, we open a PowerShell window in the same folder where we have adb installed. We can do this by clicking the right mouse button while holding down the “key.Shift”And selecting“Open PowerShell window here”.
Now that we have the terminal open, we write the following command:
adb shell pm grant com.fb.fluid android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS
If this command returns an error, we can try this other command:
./adb shell pm grant com.fb.fluid android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS
To finish, we take the mobile phone, enter the “Fluid Navigation Gestures” app and on the main screen we select “Hide navigation bar”. Within this new menu, we select "3 button navigation”And we follow the indications until this option appears marked with a blue check.
With this, we would deactivate the navigation bar and we would already have our Android device configured with the same navigation interface included in Android 10.
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