OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7T finally get Always-On Display but you should steer clear for now

OnePlus 7 and OnePlus 7T users who've been champing at the bit for the Always-On Display (AOD) feature can try it out right now in the OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 3, but as excited as you might be to give it a whirl, you should probably steer clear for now.

AOD has popped up on a range of smartphones, like the Samsung Galaxy S21, and allows your handset to show a select handful of data while it's sleeping, like the date, time, battery life, and so on, but it can be tinkered with to suit your preferences. As you'd imagine, AOD can be a drain on the battery, which is probably why it's missing from the iPhone 12. 

The feature was tucked away in the OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 2, and wasn't available for the OnePlus 7, or OnePlus 7T, but could still be enabled. With the release of OxygenOS 11 Open Beta 3, owners of the handset can turn it on in their settings, but the feature is reportedly buggy – not working at all in some instances – and is a significant drain on the battery (via XDA Developers). 

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If you want to charge ahead anyway and are desperate to use it, battery be damned, you can switch it on in Settings > Utilities > OnePlus Laboratory > Always-On ambient display. OnePlus notes:

"Enabling the AOD feature will lead to increased power consumption in the build. However, this will be optimized in the upcoming builds."

It's a bit of a rigmarole installing the beta build, so if you own a OnePlus 7, or OnePlus 7T, we'd advise sitting tight until a more stable version rolls out and you can make the most of it.

In the meantime, all eyes are on the upcoming OnePlus 9, which is set to open for pre-orders on March 23, according to the latest leak. The flagship is set to debut this month, so we only have a few weeks left before we get to see what kind of improvements OnePlus has in store.