Pixel March Feature Drop is coming — here's what's new for your phone

The Google 6 Pro (left, in black) and Google Pixel 6 (right, in coral), leaning together against a tree on wooden decking

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Outside of major system updates and security patches, Google puts out quarterly Feature Drops for Pixel phones. These releases bring some small new features to Pixels, but they're fun and neat all the same.

Now it's time for the March Feature Drop, which promises some slight upgrades coming to Pixel phones. The highlight feature in this batch of changes is Google's powerful Night Sight in Snapchat. That means you can take better low-light photos and videos within the Snapchat app. This is a nice quality-of-life update for Snapchat users. Whether Google plans to offer Night Sight to other social media apps remains unknown.

pixel march feature drop gif showing night sight in snapchat — (Image credit: Google)

Live Caption is a great accessibility option for those Android users with hearing difficulties, as it produces captions for audio in real-time. Live Caption has proven to be pretty accurate for the most part, certainly enough to give the person reading the captions the gist of what's going on.

With this feature drop, Live Caption is coming to calls. You will be able to read what the other person is saying and type something back to them, which will then be read aloud on their end.

pixel march feature drop gif showing live caption in calls — (Image credit: Google)

With the Galaxy S22, we saw Google's Duo video chat app take on some FaceTime-like features, notably watch parties that allowed you to share content with other people on a call. Pixel users will be able to host YouTube watch parties in Duo now. On another note, to make conversations more visually appealing, your Pixel will now be able to suggest stickers based on your text in Messages.

The excellent At a Glace widget is getting an upgrade, too. Not only will the widget now show the battery levels of your Pixel and Bluetooth-connected devices, but it'll also surface additional relevant info. This includes a reminder to disable an alarm if the next day is a holiday, a personal safety check countdown, and earthquake alerts. Pixels will also now be able to recognize Spanish in videos and other media and translate it to the other supported languages, though this feature is slated for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro only.

If you own a Pixel 3a, 3a XL, 4, 4 XL, 4a, 4a 5G, or 5, the update will start rolling out today (March 7). The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro will get their updates later this month — this isn't the first time that the Tensor-powered Pixels have lagged behind their Snapdragon brothers when it comes to updates, though.

Jordan is the Phones Editor for Tom's Guide, covering all things phone-related. He's written about phones for over six years and plans to continue for a long while to come. He loves nothing more than relaxing in his home with a book, game, or his latest personal writing project. Jordan likes finding new things to dive into, from books and games to new mechanical keyboard switches and fun keycap sets. Outside of work, you can find him poring over open-source software and his studies.