Google Weather update brings “immersive weather vibrations” to users

Google is now beginning the roll-out of a few nifty additions that make checking the weather a bit more immersive and informative on Pixel devices. If you’re rocking a Pixel 8 or newer, you’ll soon get introduced to “Immersive weather vibrations” to accompany those fun, new AI-generated city backgrounds.

It’s generally what it sounds like, making your phone vibrate in sync with the weather animation on the screen and matching the intensity of the rain or other precipitation. It’s a subtle touch, but it adds an extra layer of immersion to the weather experience we all participate in on the daily.

When it arrives for you, you should see the setting (turned on by default) if you back out of your current-location weather view to the screen where you see all of your saved locations. Tap on your profile picture in the top right corner and you should get a new menu item that lets you control the new feature a bit. As this is rolling out on a server-side basis, I don’t have this new feature just yet, but you can see the new menu options below thanks to screen grabs from 9to5 Google:

Additionally, Google is adding a pollen count block to Google Weather as well. This is a big deal for allergy sufferers, and soon, you’ll find a handy pollen count card right in the Google Weather app. It gives you the lowdown on grass, tree, and weed pollen levels, and you can even get a 3-5 day forecast with a quick tap.

The pollen count feature is currently available in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, but the good news is that you can view it from any country. Google has plans to expand availability soon, so hopefully, the rest of us won’t have to wait too long. These new features have been making their way to users via a server-side update over the past few days, so if you haven’t seen them yet, keep an eye out!