Pixel 11 owners say their phones are waking up without being touched

Now that the Pixel 11 series has only been out in the wild for a short time, the inevitable early quirks are starting to emerge. One of them appears to involve Google’s usually handy ‘Lift to check phone’ feature, with Pixel 11 Pro owners reporting that their screens are waking with barely any movement at all.

A Reddit user raised the issue after noticing their new Pixel 11 Pro repeatedly waking while simply sitting on a table. After experimenting with the phone’s wake settings, they found that disabling the gesture stopped the behavior.

That users isn’t alone. Another Pixel 11 Pro owner says even putting something down on the same table can wake their phone, while someone else reports their device repeatedly lighting up while resting on the arm of a couch. A Pixel 11 Pro XL owner also reports seeing the same behavior, and another commenter claims that a sharp turn while driving was enough to wake their phone. A few commenters who previously owned older Pixels also say the feature seems noticeably more sensitive on the Pixel 11.

That suggests the feature may be reacting to vibrations and other very small movements. There is at least one report of similarly over-sensitive behavior on a Pixel 9 Pro, though, so it’s not clear whether this is specifically a Pixel 11 issue.

The obvious workaround is to disable Lift to check phone under the lock screen settings, although that means giving up the feature entirely. Some in the Reddit thread speculate that this is likely to be addressed in an upcoming update. We’ve contacted Google for comment and will update this article if we hear back.