Try Out the New Night Sight Mode on your Pixel Device

by Ben Madison · October 30, 2018

Google might have previously unveiled the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL devices and due to all those leaks, there wasn’t much left to come as a surprise. Despite of that, there was one new Google Camera feature that didn’t get leaked before launch: Night Sight. This comes mostly as a low-light mode that uses A.I. and the Pixel’s HDR processing to dramatically boost photos taken in low light and the good news is that Google is getting ready to release the feature as the latest version of the Google Camera app which rolled out to users has a fully functional Night Sight built-in.

What happened next? As you can imagine, someone interfered and made the magic possible. The XDA Senior Member cstark27 is this time the one who decompiled the app, changed a boolean value from false to true, and recompiled the app. With his modded Google Camera app, we can now try out the new Night Sight feature on the Google Pixel 3 XL, Google Pixel 3, Google Pixel 2 XL, and original Google Pixel handsets, along with Google Pixel 2 and Google Pixel XL joining the list.

This is exciting, I know it too, but I want to remind you that this isn’t an official app, so there are some risks involved into doing that in the first place. Even more, it will also install as a separate app, so make sure you launch the right one if you do take the plunge. And since this isn’t the final release, just keep in mind that Google is putting the final touches on the Night Sight mode right, so you aren’t actually getting the complete package, at least not yet.

The Night Sight results you’ll get with this Google Camera mod may not be as good as what you’ll get with the official update next month, but if you are still eager to test out some of the results of Google’s newest mode and you’re OK with all these, then feel free to follow the below steps. It is possible to do it as long as you have one of the handsets previously mentioned, of course.

And if you are not the owner of a Pixel device, then stay tuned to the XDA Portal and us as I can put my bet on the fact that one of the many skilled Google Camera modders out there will eventually figure out how to port it to other Android devices. Are you in?

Try Out the New Night Sight Mode on your Pixel Device:

At first, download the modified APK and sideload it onto any Pixel phone;
Then, when you open the camera app and it detects you’re in a low-light situation, it’ll prompt you to “try Night mode”;
Feel free to access the new mode by going to More;
Then, just select Night;
Here, the camera shutter has an icon of a moon that, when pressed, asks you to hold still while it is “collecting light.”