One UI 7’s Galaxy S25 Nearby Devices feature: Samsung’s answer to Apple’s seamless ecosystem?

One UI 7 brings a new Nearby Devices interface that allows you to instantly connect to other Galaxy devices from your Galaxy S25, S25+, or Galaxy S25 Ultra phone.  

During the beta testing of One UI 7 on the Galaxy S24 phones, some of the features were hidden to serve as a sweet surprise at the Unpacked event last week and with the arrival of the long-anticipated Galaxy S25 phones. One such feature that One UI 7 would bring is the brand-new Nearby Devices interface. Although that's not a huge upgrade by any means, it's a neat interface that looks quite cool and would elevate the Galaxy ecosystem experience.

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The new Nearby Devices interface is accessible through the quick panel. It lists all your (as the name suggests) nearby devices at the bottom and allows you to connect to any of them in an instant with your Galaxy S25. To do so, you need to drag a device's icon to the center of the screen. It's a fluid and modern interface that even has some sci-fi-inspired effects.



If you tap a device, it reveals the sharing and connectivity features that are available once the device and the Galaxy S25 are connected. Right now, it seems the feature is only supported on the Galaxy S25 phone, but it may (or may not, we don't know yet) trickle down to older Galaxy S models with One UI 7.

Meanwhile, Samsung says the Nearby Devices feature will work only with Galaxy devices, Samsung smart TVs, and smart monitors by the company. It exists to make connecting Samsung devices easier and more intuitive, probably in an attempt to further advance the Galaxy ecosystem and reach Apple's fluid interconnectivity between Apple devices.

It isn't known at the moment whether devices from other brands would be supported in Nearby Devices. I'd say if the focus is indeed on Galaxy devices, connecting with other devices using the feature would somewhat ruin the exclusivity effect, but we'll have to wait and see.

The Galaxy S25 trio was announced during Samsung's Unpacked event last week and is now available for pre-order, with general availability starting February 7.

Although the event got some people questioning whether Samsung's new devices are as exciting as they should've been, the new phones still brought several notable upgrades, including a new ultra-fast chip, contextual Galaxy AI (something Apple promised for its iPhone 16 but we're still waiting on), and a sweet rounded-corner look for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, among other improvements.  

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