One UI 6.1 brings a lot of important features and is arguably a more feature-packed update than One UI 6.0. It brings several new AI features for the Galaxy S24 lineup, like live translation for calls and texts, a host of new Photo Editing features, Summarize, a smarter keyboard, and more.
Galaxy AI features aside, there’s better Picture-in-picture mode management and more lock screen customization. You can choose a lot of clock styles and add lock screen widgets. You can now choose to show a dim version of your wallpaper on the Always On Display, and there’s a feature that adjusts the warmth of your display depending on the ambient temperature. This is similar to Apple’s True Tone.
Another improvement with One UI 6.1 is animations and device fluidity. One UI 6.1 trades Gaussian Blur for a more dramatic wallpaper scaling effect. The wallpaper motion is much more obvious now, and the animations look much smoother. They are now non-linear and interruptible, and there’s nothing to complain about regarding the animations on One UI 6.1.
While these are the highlight features, One UI 6.1 also brings one new app: the Samsung Find app. The Find app helps you locate your Galaxy devices and anything to which you attach your SmartTags. The Samsung Find app is a replacement for the SmartThings Find feature. This feature was part of the SmartThings app.
This app is globally available except for China, where the laws probably do not allow it, or Samsung didn’t bother due to their products’ relatively insignificant market share in China. You can see all your Galaxy devices on the SmartThings Find network.
The app is pre-installed on all phones from the S24 models, running UI 6.1 out of the box. You can easily download the Samsung Find app from the Galaxy Store if you’re on an older phone. The app has three tabs: People, Devices, and Items.
People Tab: You can share your location with your friends and family. You can also see their location on a map.
Devices Tab: You can locate a friend or family member’s device. It works for phones, earbuds/ TWS, smartwatches, and tablets.
Items Tab: If you attach a Galaxy SmartTag to an item, you can track that item with this tab. People typically tag items like backpacks, wallets, or keys with a SmartTag.
The Samsung Find app doesn’t yet have the “Notify when left behind” feature. If you move away from an important, it sends you an alert. This feature is still in the old SmartThings app and is not in the new Samsung Find app. We’ll mostly get it in a later update.
In an internal settings menu, you can pick the location-sharing device, choose the allowed devices to be found, choose to encrypt the offline location, etc.
