Xiaomi bringing Samsung-like privacy display feature to its phones with HyperOS 4: tipster

Smartphone brands spent the last few years chasing brighter screens, thinner bezels, and increasingly aggressive AI features. But one of the more interesting additions that arrived this year actually made displays harder to see. Samsung introduced a new Privacy Display feature on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra earlier this year, aimed at stopping people nearby from casually glancing at your screen in public places. Now, a leak suggests Xiaomi is preparing something similar for its own devices.

According to tipster Yogesh Brar, Xiaomi is working on a Samsung-style privacy mode that could arrive with HyperOS 4 later this year. An earlier leak from Digital Chat Station had claimed that Chinese smartphone brands were already testing the feature for upcoming flagship phones, with the Xiaomi 18 series expected to be among the first likely candidates, and the new tip corroborates that.

Galaxy S26 Privacy Display coming on Xiaomi phones?

Samsung’s system is hardware-based. The Galaxy S26 Ultra uses a display technology called Flex Magic Pixel that can narrow viewing angles by physically altering pixel behaviour. In practice, it makes the screen much harder to read from the side while keeping the front-facing view clear. That is closer to the privacy modes previously seen on business laptops like HP Sure View and Lenovo PrivacyGuard displays.

Xiaomi’s version, however, currently sounds more software-driven. Since the feature is tipped to arrive through HyperOS 4, it may work more like BlackBerry’s old Privacy Shade mode, where most of the screen is darkened except for a small active viewing area.

Samsung’s Privacy Display has faced criticism for reducing brightness and causing eye strain for some users compared to the previous-generation Galaxy S25 Ultra. A software-based implementation would likely avoid those trade-offs because it would not rely on specialised display hardware.

It could also be easier to scale. If Xiaomi handles the feature through software, there is a good chance it could arrive on older phones through updates instead of being locked to expensive new flagship panels. If display privacy is a critical feature for you, it might be prudent to wait for the official announcement of HyperOS 4 and the Xiaomi 18 series to evaluate Xiaomi’s software-based solution against existing hardware options.