New One UI 8.5 Firmware Brings Major Visual Changes and UI Enhancements

One UI 8.5 is positioned as a refinement-first firmware that doubles down on visual cohesion, subtle animations, and smarter UI touchpoints across Samsung’s ecosystem. Rather than reinventing the interface, it modernizes key surfaces—home screen, lock screen, notifications, system apps, and widgets—to feel faster, more consistent, and more accessible.

Samsung’s focus is clear: crisp color, flatter iconography, careful spacing, and motion that feels purposeful, all paired with lightweight AI to suggest wallpapers, apps, and widgets at the right time. This update reads as a design tune-up that makes daily interactions smoother and more visually pleasing.

Refreshed Home Screen experience

One UI 8.5 refreshes the home screen with a new icon treatment, boosted saturation, and a flatter visual language that aligns more tightly with modern Android design trends. The goal is clarity: bolder shapes, easier scan-ability, and less visual noise.

Dynamic wallpapers also receive a lift, with AI-generated suggestions based on usage patterns and a broader palette of gradients and motion styles that track swipes and unlock transitions. The result is a canvas that feels alive, but never distracting.

1. Updated icons feature more vibrant colors and a minimalistic flat design for improved readability at a glance.
2. AI-generated wallpaper suggestions surface thematic sets, seasonal vibes, or palette-matching designs for instant personalization.
3. New gradients and motion styles add subtle depth during app launches, page swipes, and return-to-home animations.

Enhanced Quick Panel and notifications

The Quick Settings panel in One UI 8.5 embraces rounded toggles, softer shadows, and larger iconography to improve tap targets and legibility. Elements feel separated but cohesive, reducing visual clutter and encouraging confident interactions.

Notifications adopt cleaner spacing and nuanced blur effects for depth, helping separate priority alerts from background updates. The ensemble looks fresh and practical, with better hierarchy and accessibility.

1. Rounded toggles with soft shadows and larger icons make quick changes more comfortable and precise.
2. Cleanly spaced notification cards, improved typography, and a gentle blur layer enhance readability.
3. System sliders and device controls feel more consistent, whether accessed from the shade or lock screen.

Lock screen and Always-On Display improvements

The lock screen and AOD stages get thoughtful refreshes built for glanceability and polish. Clock styles expand with new fonts and layouts, making it easier to match the device’s look to personal taste or wallpaper tones.

Animations on AOD are tuned for smoothness, particularly during lift-to-wake or tap-to-check interactions, while battery information is placed more intentionally for quick scanning.

1. More clock fonts and layout options enable cleaner, personalized lock screen setups.
2. AOD transitions feel smoother when lifting the device, reducing visual jank and delay.
3. Battery percentage is positioned more intuitively on AOD for instant recognition.

System apps visual upgrade

Core system apps, including Samsung Messages, Phone, Gallery, and Settings, receive a layered redesign approach: compact surfaces, refined iconography, and cleaner navigation affordances. Navigation bars lean toward bottom alignment and simplified labeling to maximize content area.

In Settings, category icons are retouched for consistency, and a “Most Used” ribbon surfaces frequently accessed items at the top, reducing the time to reach common controls.

1. Messages and Phone adopt a new bottom navigation bar with simplified chat bubbles and clearer call controls.
2. Settings icons are redesigned by category, improving recognition and flow through deeper menus.
3. A “Most Used” section anchors the top of Settings to speed up access for everyday toggles and panels.

Widgets and smart suggestions

Widgets in One UI 8.5 grow more flexible and smarter simultaneously. Widget stacks let multiple widgets live in the same spot, swappable with a swipe, cutting down on clutter without sacrificing utility.

Smart Suggestions get a visual refresh too, leaning into card-style presentations that can suggest apps, widgets, and shortcuts based on context, time, and recent activity.

1. Stackable widgets allow fast horizontal swipes between widgets on the same screen location for space efficiency.
2. Smart Suggestions use a new card-style visual language to propose apps, actions, and widgets that match ongoing habits.
3. The overall widget library benefits from tighter spacing, consistent margins, and improved typography for glanceable data.

Improved dark mode experience

Dark mode in One UI 8.5 refines blacks and grays to avoid the washed-out or overly stark look that can appear in mixed interfaces. The palette balances deep blacks with soft grayscale for improved contrast and comfort.

Adaptive accent colors now tint system elements to match wallpaper hues, tying together the home screen, panels, and core apps with a consistent tone.

1. A refined color palette pairs darker blacks with softer grays to minimize glare and maximize legibility at night.
2. Adaptive accent colors subtly tint system UI elements based on wallpaper, enhancing thematic cohesion.
3. Icn and text contrast follows accessibility guidance more closely for better readability in dim conditions.

Multitasking and Edge Panel enhancements

Multitasking visuals are tuned for fluidity and clarity in One UI 8.5, with refined split-screen animations that make app dragging and window snapping feel responsive and intentional. The effect is a reduction in friction when switching between tasks.

The Edge Panel embraces a transparent, glass-like treatment that blends into the current screen while staying legible, improving its role as a quick utility layer.

1. New split-screen animations look smoother when dragging apps into place and snapping windows.
2. The Edge Panel gains a transparent, glass-like effect that reduces visual interruption without sacrificing contrast.
3. Gestural hints and haptic taps guide windowing actions more intuitively during multitasking.

Camera and Gallery visual tweaks

The Camera app keeps familiar ergonomics but cleans up mode switching and iconography, particularly in Pro and Night modes, to reduce ambiguity and present a clear path to advanced controls. The look is modern and tool-like without clutter.

Gallery gets a refreshed grid layout that emphasizes imagery, along with a more visually engaging “Memories” area that uses AI to curate highlights with unified card styles and tasteful typography.

1. A cleaner mode switcher and new icons for Pro and Night modes sharpen the Camera’s usability.
2. Gallery’s refreshed photo grid prioritizes content with tighter, more consistent spacing.
3. AI-curated “Memories” adopt updated visuals that unify cover art, labels, and action controls.

Accessibility and usability changes

Accessibility is woven into the visual refresh with larger buttons, roomier sliders, and clearer contrast options throughout the system UI and apps. These changes reduce mis-taps, help with low-vision use cases, and elevate clarity on big screens.

Haptic feedback is tuned for interactions that matter—taps, toggles, and state changes—offering subtle physical confirmation that aligns with the softer animation language across the interface.

1. Bigger buttons and sliders improve hit accuracy, particularly on large displays and one-handed use.
2. Color contrast options increase legibility across bright and dark environments and help meet accessibility targets.
3. Haptic feedback is carefully tuned to UI interactions, reinforcing actions without feeling noisy.

Conclusion

One UI 8.5 places polish front and center, elevating Samsung’s interface with cohesive visuals, smoother animations, and quality-of-life refinements across everyday surfaces. Icons, widgets, quick settings, and system apps feel more unified and modern, while dark mode, AOD, and lock screen updates match the design language with functional clarity.

By emphasizing visual consistency and intuitive touchpoints, this firmware lays the groundwork for the next wave of Samsung’s UX evolution, setting the stage for a more ambitious One UI 9.0.