Here’s what the Nothing Phone 1’s rear lights can actually do

The Phone 1 will come with a bunch of light strips on its back. Thanks to a video from Marques Brownlee, we now know what they will be useful for. Brownlee shows a couple of different use cases, including having the LEDs work as a charging indicator, highlighting unread notifications, or flashing in time with a mobile phone.

The strips, which Nothing is branding as its "glyph interface," consist of a little over 900 individual LEDs embedded into the back of the phone. Nothing CEO Carl Pei said in an interview that they could serve as a modern take on the classic notificationLED, but now we have a better idea of how this will work in practice.

The highlights of Brownlee's video are listed here.

• All strips light up to show notifications.
• The central circle (squircle?) lights up to indicate wireless or reverse wireless charging.
• The bottom light strip can act as a charging progress bar.
• All strips can light up to serve as a fill light for the camera.
• All strips can flash in time with the phone’s 10 built-in ringtones.

There is a red light that goes off when the phone is in motion.

Nothing has been showing off the Phone 1 as part of its marketing campaign. The design of the rear of the phone was shown off last week and it has already released a preview of the Nothing OS app. We know that the phone is powered by a processor from the same company. As we approach the July 12th launch, expect that to change.