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Samsung retires S Pen Air Commands because no one was using them
Users were mostly only triggering camera captures with the pen.
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra will have an S Pen onboard, as is tradition for all Galaxy S Ultra smartphones since the 2022's Galaxy S22 Ultra. What that S Pen won't have anymore is Air Commands, because it turns out barely anyone bothered with them.
Air Commands are a feature that allows Galaxy owners to assign various actions to pen gestures made, as the name implies, in the air rather than on the phone's screen. In a briefing, Samsung representatives told members of the media that less than one percent of customers with an S Pen bothered using Air Commands. Those who did mostly used them to trigger camera captures, a thing that can be done pretty easily without the S Pen. For those one percent of users perhaps sad to see Air Commands go, Samsung claims removing support for the gestures as well as Bluetooth LE will increase the pen’s durability and eliminate some weight.
The Samsung Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25+ and Galaxy S25 Ultra have been officially unveiled. Preorders for the Samsung Galaxy S25 models are already open, and they will ship on February 7. Want to relive the event as it unfolded? Watch the livestream of the Galaxy S25 launch and look back at the Samsung Unpacked liveblog. Alternately, check out Everything Samsung announced at the Galaxy S25 Unpacked event for a complete recap.
