The main purpose of Galaxy S10’s punch-hole selfie camera is to cut down bezels while avoiding the need for a distracting, centrally-located notch.
But less than a month after the S10’s release, users are already figuring out other novel uses for Samsung’s nifty selfie cam.
The most obvious development is the wallpapers that take advantage of the punch-hole cam to add a little bit of extra flair to your home screen or hide the camera within design elements like the eye of a penguin.
But IJP’s new Energy Ring app takes that idea even farther by adding some extra utility that lets you see the S10’s battery level just by looking at its front cam.
Energy Ring, which is available for free on the Google Play store, is an evolution of IJP’s previous battery indicator apps and gives you the ability to put a small, coloured ring around the outside of the front cam. By default, Energy Ring is set to go from green to red as your phone runs out of juice, but really it could look however you want.
Energy Ring even allows you to customise the gradient and thickness of the ring, which direction you want to the ring to move, and the option of hiding the ring when you are viewing full-screen content. And when you recharge the phone, you can even set the app to animate the ring using a number of different presets (linear, acceleration, bounce, etc.).
The only permission Energy Ring needs is access to notifications, so that the ring can use some of the otherwise wasted space inside that area. There’s no location tracking or even a request to access the camera, though inside of the the app’s settings menu, there is room reserved for a single ad.
While Energy Ring isn’t a revolutionary idea, it is a neat way to get spruce up your phone. And since you can’t really get rid of S10’s punch-hole camera, you might as well have some fun with it. Heck, who knows, you might even end up relying on Energy Ring instead of the boring old (and less customisable) battery icon.
[h/t to Android Police]