Pixel 2 Active Edge Remap Highlights A Big Problem

The Pixel 2's Active Edge is a fairly neat feature, but unfortunately, it's limited in usefulness out of the box. While being able to squeeze the sides of your phone to perform an action seems like it would be really handy, Google has limited you to using it to either silence incoming calls or pull up Google Assistant. In that sense, Active Edge is a lot like the Bixby button – potentially useful, but far too limited by the manufacturer for that usefulness to be fully realized.

While we can probably expect Google to roll out new functionality for Active Edge at some point down the road, it seems unlikely that you'll ever be able to remap it to do whatever you'd like it do. Enter XDA Developers or, more specifically, one developer who frequents the XDA forums: flar2. With flar2's Button Mapper utility, you can "remap" the functionality of Active Edge in your Pixel 2.

For the moment, this is the only known workaround for Active Edge. The problem lies in the fact that Google has hardcoded Active Edge to work only when Google Assistant is set as the phone's assistant app. Button Mapper works by reading your phone's system logs when you squeeze the edges and hiding Google Assistant in favor of your desired action, so while it isn't technically remapping Active Edge, it's likely as close as we're going to get for a while.

This functionality is present in Button Mapper version 0.53, and while that portion of the software is free to use, it should be noted that other features require a license. Still, XDA Developers recommends looking into the app for other tasks, as it offers a lot of handy features. As for Active Edge remapping, you can see it in action in the video above.

To get going with Button Mapper, head over to this post on XDA Developers, which includes a tutorial on how to remap Active Edge on your Pixel 2. The post ends with a warning that this solution may lead to slow down in some areas, along with the simple fact that Google could eventually patch out Button Mapper's workaround. For now, though, this should let you reclaim Active Edge for your own purposes.