Some Pixel 8 users reporting glass‑like ping on unlock after September update

It seems the recent Android 16 QPR1 update that rolled out with the September patch has brought a weird bug affecting some Pixel 8 owners. I spotted a post on Google’s support forums from a few days ago discussing the problem with a new unlock sound.

According to the report from Shawn LeFevre, their Pixel 8 Pro has all of a sudden started making a sound each time they unlock the phone. And no, it’s not the same screen unlock sound that you might have expected. The OP confirmed that the ‘Screen locking sound’ setting was already turned off.

Also, this is unrelated to the new haptic pattern that people have already been complaining about. LeFevre’s post has 18 votes from people claiming that they’re facing the same problem; however, only two other people have actually commented to confirm that they are experiencing the same bug.

That said, I found a post on Reddit that describes the exact same situation. User raynzor12 with a Pixel 8 said, “When I use the sensor to unlock the phone or in some apps, it now gives that weird sound, like a small spring.”

Some commenters did give them the usual suggestions to disable unlock sounds, but that didn’t help. One individual also suggested it might be the new haptics, but as a Pixel 8 user myself, I can confirm that the haptics do not make a sound like what these few users are describing.

Matter of fact, LeFevre even recorded the sound and shared it on the thread. You can hear it from the embed below. It’s audible around the 5 second mark.

After listening to the audio, KalindaG commented, “I’m having the same issue on my Pixel 8 when unlocking and the sound is almost exactly the same, maybe a little higher pitched.”

While I was trying to dig up past instances where people faced similar issues, NFC was the culprit. For instance, this mega thread from 2019 has over a thousand votes from people who claimed to have the same issue. People didn’t realize that their access cards or driving licenses had NFC chips embedded, which caused their phones to make a noise.

Similarly, a post earlier this year on Google’s support forums also described the problem. The OP later confirmed NFC was indeed the culprit.

But as I was putting two and two together, I noticed the comment from KalindaG on the recent thread, who confirmed that this sound was audible even after disabling NFC.

So this rules out NFC this time around. That said, the problem isn’t going to be completely ignored. A platinum product expert who has been participating in the discussion commented that there might be a chance that this is a “1st party ‘native glitch’ in the system.” 

They asked the users to submit feedback by going to About phone > Send feedback about this device*. They later followed up with a comment noting that “this issue has been raised to the internal team as a possible bug and will be examined.” But they also cautioned that a fix might take time.

That said, in my testing, I could not replicate the sound at all. Even the NFC sound is noticeably different from the sound shared by LeFevre.

At present, the only confirmed way to get rid of the sound is to disable all haptics, though that’s hardly a solution since you’d lose haptics everywhere.

I’ll keep an eye out for any further developments here and will update this article if there’s something new to share. In the meantime, let me know if you too have noticed this new sound on your Pixel 8 or any other Pixel device following the September update.