Keep in mind when Guidelines was a giant factor on Android? Yeah, me neither. This long-forgotten characteristic from 2019 nonetheless exists, as I just lately found, and it’s really fairly helpful.
The Guidelines characteristic continues to be out there on Android 16, and it is actually simple. You should utilize it to create automations by setting circumstances that set off an occasion based mostly in your Wi-Fi or location. Whereas the automations aren’t as open-ended, they’re nonetheless a nifty approach to change settings you alter recurrently.
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Learn how to configure Guidelines in your Pixel to create automations
Guidelines work very similar to routines on Google Dwelling. Besides, after all, you are not creating automations for good units. Reasonably, Guidelines create automations that change sure telephone settings in your Google Pixel gadget based mostly in your location or the Wi-Fi community you are related to.
Let me stroll you thru the steps of setting a Rule. I used a Pixel 10 Professional for this information, however any Google Pixel gadget operating Android 10 or above ought to have this characteristic.
1. Open Settings in your Google Pixel.
2. Enter System settings.
3. Faucet Guidelines below System settings.
(Picture credit score: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central)
4. Faucet Subsequent and provides the mandatory permissions to entry Wi-Fi and site information.
5. Faucet the Add rule button.
What to learn subsequent
6. Select your rule kind: Wi-Fi or Location.
(Picture credit score: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central)
7. Set the location or Wi-Fi community.
8. Subsequent, set the motion that you really want your Pixel to do.
9. Faucet the ultimate Add button on the bottom-right nook.
(Picture credit score: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central)
This one is a bonus step that may enable you out a ton. Within the Guidelines settings menu the place you simply created an automation, allow the toggle to Routinely recommend guidelines based mostly on modifications that you simply recurrently make to your settings.
The great thing about a Pixel is that’s does every part higher
(Picture credit score: Namerah Saud Fatmi / Android Central)
If you happen to felt not sure about how you may benefit from the “Routinely recommend guidelines” possibility, it is a improbable approach to let your telephone do the considering. Even if you cannot consider the settings you modify ceaselessly and in what circumstances, your Pixel will discover your patterns and recommend helpful automations based mostly on that.
I am actually hoping to see Google combine this with Gemini and Google Dwelling going ahead, enabling us to do much more with the Guidelines characteristic. It looks like the pure path for Google to take, particularly with Gemini being entrance and heart in Android and the rise of agentic AI.
Function-laden perfection
The Google Pixel 10 comes with Android 16 put in out of the field and a promise of seven years’ of OS and safety updates. It’s also first in line to obtain any new options of Android and advantages from month-to-month Google Pixel updates known as Pixel Drops. The cameras are stellar, the telephone appears and feels phenomenal, and it performs silky easy.
