One of the few features retained on the Pixel 4 from the Pixel 3 is the Active Edge. It lets you squeeze your phone to launch Google Assistant or silence calls. But, do you know, with a third-party Android app, you can even remap it to launch any application, toggle flashlight, control media, and much more. Sound interesting? Let’s see how to do it.
Remap Pixel 4 Active Edge
To get started we’ll use the Button Mapper Android app and its desktop client. Follow the steps.
1. Open the Button Mapper app and it would automatically detect a Pixel device and provide you an “Active Edge” option right on top. Tap on it to remap the active edge.
2. On the mapping page, when you turn on the Customize toggle, the app will prompt certain steps. Connect your Pixel device to your laptop and download & install the Button Mapper Desktop app.
Make sure you have USB debugging enabled on your phone
3. On the Button Mapper desktop app, click on the “Connect” button at the bottom. This will provide a prompt on your phone as well, make sure you tap on Allow.
4. Once the desktop app detects your Pixel device, it will enable an option called “Enable Active Edge Remapping”. Click on it to provide the Button Mapper app necessary permissions on your Android phone.
5. Post that, tap on the “Single tap” option right below the Customize toggle. You can now remap the Active Edge squeeze to a particular action, application, shortcuts, media control, etc. For instance, I have mapped the squeeze to toggle the flashlight which comes really handy at times. You can even map an application like Spotify, YouTube to be launched when you squeeze the device.
Alternatively, you can also do the same manually using ADB tools. On the ADB command prompt, run the following command.
./adb shell sh /data/data/flar2.homebutton/logcat.sh
However, launching an app or shortcut is not that seamless in Button Mapper. Since the mapping is done on the software end. When you squeeze the Pixel, it initially launches the Google Assistant for a second and then jumps to the custom application.
Closing Words
Button Mapper also provides numerous other options to assign additional actions to the fingerprint sensor, volume button. However, those features are paid and you would have to shell out $2.
For more queries or issues regarding Button Mapper, let me know in the comments below.
Also Read: How to Get Automatic Dark Theme on Android 10 Devices
