The Google Pixel 2 was way ahead of the competition when it came to smartphone photography and now following its footsteps the Google Pixel 3 was announced with a feature Google calls ‘Night Sight‘. At the launch event, almost everyone was skeptical about the feature even when Google shows a side by side comparison of the feature compared to an iPhone XS.
The ‘Night Sight’ feature wasn’t made available to Pixel 3 users right away since Google was still fine-tweaking the feature for the best results. A couple of weeks ago the feature was unofficially enabled by developers over at XDA and the users could install the ported APK file on their device to use the Night Sight feature which turned out to be absolutely brilliant.
Related:
- Get Google Pixel 2 portrait mode on any Android device
- Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL: All you need to know
The difference when the feature is turned off and on was literally night and day in most cases and now finally Google has officially rolled out the update for the Google Pixel 3. If you don’t own a Pixel device, then there’s no reason to be disappointed. Within just a few days some hardworking devs have managed to port the Pixel 3 Night Sight feature to work on other devices as well. That’s the beauty of having an Android device.
Download Night Sight camera APK port
Here’s a list of devices for which the Night Sight feature has already been ported to.
| Device | Download Port |
| OnePlus 6 | Download |
| OnePlus 6T | Download |
| Redmi Note 5 Pro | Download |
| Xiaomi Mi 8 | Download |
| Xiaomi Mi 5 | Download |
| Xiaomi Poco F1 | Download |
| Essential Phone | Download |
BTW, the Night Sight feature is also available on the original Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, officially. So all you need to get the Night Sight feature on Pixel handsets is installing the latest OTA update.
Night Sight requirements
The Night Sight feature only works with devices running on Android 9 Pie. Custom ROMs based on Android Pie are fully compatible, so if you are running a ROM like Pixel Experience, LineageOS 16, etc., you are good.
Related:
- OnePlus Android Pie release roadmap
- Samsung Android Pie release roadmap
- Huawei Android 9 Pie release roadmap
How to install Night Sight camera
All you need to get the Night Sight feature on the devices for which the camera app has been ported (see the table above) is install the APK file provided above.
If you aren’t familiar with how to install APK files, then you could check out our article on how to install APK files on your Android device. Google’s Night Sight feature seems to be better than most other manufactures low-light imaging tricks on their flagship devices.
Night Sight camera tips
Here are a few things to keep in mind when using the night sight feature.
- Moving objects might have some blur or can be totally blurred out which is to be expected since the device takes a couple of seconds to process an image shot with the Night Sight feature.
- The feature works best when there is little to no light in the frame. That’s when you would be able to tell the true difference between a normal picture and a picture taken with the feature turned on.
- Night Sight even works with the front facing camera too.
- Do not shake too much when snapping a picture using Night Sight since this can lead to a blurry image.
Since the feature isn’t developed for all smartphones you might face a few bugs here and there using the ported GCam application on your Android device. The app can also crash at times which is quite common, however, the results it produces is worth having to deal with a couple of bugs.
