XDA developers: How to Get the Most out of EMUI on the Honor 8

jeudi 1 septembre 2016

How to Get the Most out of EMUI on the Honor 8

There's a good chance that the Honor 8 is giving you your first experience with EMUI. While many people might prefer stock Android to what Honor gives you with EMUI, there are a lot of neat features that can be found in Honor's UI that offers battery savings, customization options, and security features. In this article I'm going to go over some of the best ways that you can use the different features in EMUI. Before we get started, be sure to check out the Honor 8 forums on XDA, and read more about the partnership we have with them. We currently have a contest going where you can win an Honor 8.

Home Screen Style

EMUI has an easy-mode built into their launcher that strips everything down to the basics. This mode even extends into the settings so everything is simple across the board. Obviously this mode is targeted towards people who do better with simple things. Maybe it's not a feature that the XDA audience will use but when you give your phone to the kids to play games or grandpa to take a selfie, they might handle this a little better.

Home Screen Style: Simple

Home Screen Style: Simple

Home Screen Style: Simple (Settings)

Motion Control

Motion controls are often all the same thing. You flip your phone to mute it, pick up to lower the ringer volume, and put it to your ear to answer a call. EMUI has all of this but what they also have is the unique feature of being able to differentiate the touch of a knuckle from your finger. This opens up some new options called knuckle gestures. You can assign a gesture to launch an app. Using your knuckle, draw a letter on your screen so launch the corresponding app that you have chosen.

Motion Gesture Menu

My favorite way to use the knuckle gesture is for the Smart Screenshot option. Check out this video to see how it works.

Shortcuts

The shortcuts in the notification menu can be customized with quick access to some of the best features in EMUI. You can put a shortcut to floating dock, screen record, battery modes and several other useful features.

Notification Bar Shortcuts

Smart Assistance

The smart assistance menu in the settings is where you're going to find the bulk of the awesome EMUI features. The first two features you can setup are the floating dock and the nav bar tweaks.

Smart Assistance Menu

The dock can be placed anywhere on the screen that works best for you. Tap the little circle icon and a menu will pop up with back, home, recents, screen lock and one-touch optimization options.

Floating Dock Menu

It's pretty standard for any good smartphone to come with a fingerprint scanner these days. The Honor 8 has a fingerprint scanner with an extra feature. If you press on the sensor, you'll feel it click. You can assign custom actions to this button for press, double press and press and hold. I would check out this thread here to see how other users are utilizing their smart key.

Smart Key Menu

Screen Lock and Passwords

Your lock screen and security is also very customizable. The smart unlock will use a bluetooth device to unlock your phone. So if you are connected to some headphones or something, you don't need to input your security code/pattern.

Screen Lock and Passwords Menu

Save Battery

There are so many different ways to preserve your battery life in EMUI. The first is adjusting your power plan. You can choose between performance, smart or ultra. Each of these options will show you how much time you can squeeze out of what's left of your charge.

Power Plan Options

Another great way to save some juice is the ROG power saver. This will lower your screen resolution from 1080 to 720. This also helps quite a bit with performance in some situations.

ROG Power Saving Toggle

The battery optimizer will monitor your phone to find out what you can do to get better battery life. It will check to see what apps are still running after the screen is shut off, what screen brightness you should be at and what screen timeout you should use.