OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 3 brought Always-on-Display (AOD) to OnePlus 7T despite no mention in official changelog

OnePlus’ quest to deliver Android 11-based OxygenOS 11 hasn’t exactly panned out as everyone expected, especially seeing as this has been a company known for its timeliness in rolling out updates.

Following the October 2020 release of OxygenOS 11 for the OnePlus 8 series of devices, it wasn’t until March 2021 that the OnePlus Nord bagged the same.

Older flagships that are eligible for this update such as the OnePlus 7 family of devices are still getting Open Beta builds with no word of a stable release date. OnePlus 6? Well, that’s a whole different case altogether.

In the meantime, OnePlus is actively trying to fix bugs and issues present in the Open Beta builds for the OnePlus 7 and recently, we saw the rollout of Open Beta 3.

Sadly, sometimes a build that is set to fix a certain issue ends up bringing a lot more issues to the said devices and this could be the case here.

One of the most hyped features of OxygenOS 11 is the Always-on-Display. This feature is set to be present in the stable release of OxygenOS 11 for the OnePlus 7, having debuted in the Open Beta builds (sort of).

In the announcement of OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 3 for the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7T devices, OnePlus noted the following:

Enabling the AOD feature will lead to increased power consumption in the build. However, this will be optimized in the upcoming builds.

There is a little bit of confusion surrounding this feature and its availability and with everything we know at the moment, here’s the low-down.

Always-on-Display is actually available for the OnePlus 7T following the recent update to Android 11-based OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 3.

However, the official changelog doesn’t have any mention of this feature aside from the above-mentioned quote on how Always-on-Display will lead to poorer battery life.

Interestingly, the changelog accompanying the OTA update to users of the OnePlus 7T does mention this, confirming the availability of this feature.

As a result of this mix-up, there has been a bit of confusion (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) with many users reporting having this feature working for them and a few others reporting this as a broken feature.

For those users who are facing issues with Always-on-Display (AOD) on their OnePlus 7T devices, there could be a way to get it working after all.

If AOD isn’t working on OnePlus 7T open beta 3, try this:

– Disable the ambient display gestures (tap- and lift to wake)
– Test if it works
– If not, restart device

AOD worked for me after doing this. I did the steps in reversed order but perhaps reboot isn’t necessary.
Source

This is still an Open Beta build and OnePlus could be excused for this little mix-up. But for a company that is already in the wrong books with its users over the delayed stable release of OxygenOS 11, this isn’t exactly a good show.

We can only hope to see OnePlus step up and soar to the update glory that it was once known for.

NOTE: We have these and many more OnePlus stories in our dedicated OnePlus section.

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