Paranoid Android “Peek” borrows from Motorola’s “Active Notifications”

One of the cool features that makes Motorola’s Moto X phone a “touchless” device is the ability to view notifications without even touching your phone. When they come in, a small portion of the display will show notifications automatically while consuming very little power.

Not every phone has the display technology to show what Motorola calls “Active Display,” but the developers of Paranoid Android have come up with a way to bring a similar feature to other devices.

Paranoid Android calls the feature “Peek,” and it will be available on future versions of the team’s custom version of Android 4.4 KitKat.

Here’s how it works: When a notification comes in, Peek will check to see if you move your phone within 10 seconds. For instance if you hear an alert or your phone vibrates because of an incoming text message, Facebook notification, or for some other reason and you take your phone out of your pocket or pick it up from your desk, Peek will know.

Then it’ll show a simple list of notifications with a black background to let you know what type of alert you just received. You don’t need to unlock your device or press any buttons (unless you want to view the full notification or respond to it).

Peek is an optional setting which users can enable or disable in their Display settings. But since it only activates your screen when you actually interact with your phone or tablet, it shouldn’t waste too much electricity.