The OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T have a special gaming do not disturb mode for specifically selected applications and games that lets you block heads-up notifications.
Back in Android 5.0 Lollipop, Google changed the way they displayed the content of notifications to its users. Before, the text would just scroll across the status bar and would then disappear until you expanded the Notification Panel. Since Lollipop though, a card would ‘peek’ in from the top of the screen and give you a summary of its content.
These have generally been accepted more since they show more content, are easy to read and even actionable. Not everyone likes to get these notification cards pushed down from the top of the screen though.
Some don’t like them at all, but others simply get annoyed since they’re watching something or playing a mobile game. These two instances make the peeking heads up notifications break your immersion with the content, but they can also cause issues. If you were about to tap something toward the top of the screen in a game when a notification popped in, it would take you out of the game entirely.
Thankfully, OnePlus is aware of this issue and has created what they call the Gaming Do Not Disturb mode.
OnePlus 5 Gaming Do Not Disturb
- Launch the Settings application
- Scroll all the way down to the System section
- Tap on the Advanced option
- Then tap on the Gaming Do Not Disturb option
- Customize the feature with the top two toggle options (optional)
- Tap the Add Apps option at the bottom
- Browse through and select any and all apps you don’t want to be disturbed in (e.g. games and video players)
- Then tap the Back button to see your selection of apps and games in the list.
Explanation
As mentioned, this OnePlus 5 Gaming Do Not Disturb Mode is built right into the OxygenOS software so you don’t need to be rooted or install any type of modification or applications. You’ll find this feature by launching the Settings application and scrolling all the way down to the bottom. The last section in the Settings application is labeled System, and in there you should find an option called Advanced. Tap on this option and then look toward the bottom of the list.
You’ll find the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T Gaming Do Not Disturb feature right here and tapping on it will take you into yet another sub menu. This is where all of the customization options for this feature is and it’s quite interesting to see how they set it up. So the top toggle will be for simply blocking notifications when you’re in one of your selected applications or games. Granted, it will not block alarms and it will not block phone calls as OnePlus has deemed these important.
There’s a second toggle here though that will disable the capacitive buttons (Back and Overview) when you’re in one of these games. This is an interesting option I think because of how the capacitive buttons work. There have been plenty of times when I was playing a game and my palm or thumb accidentally hit the Back or Overview button. So if you keep this toggle on, this will both be disabled when you’re in one of your selected applications or games.
So once you figure out which of these two toggles you want on/off, you can then start to add your applications or games down below. Simply tap on the Add Apps option that you see and you’ll be given a list of all the games and applications you have installed. So, if you have some games that you play where you don’t want to be disturbed when playing them, just select them in this list. The same goes for other applications such as video players (YouTube for example).
Once done, just tap the Back button from here and you should see your selected applications or games in on that screen. So the next time you launch one of those apps or games, you will not be disturbed by notifications and/or you can’t press the Back or Overview button to accidentally take you out of it.
