Google Pay is, for many, an indispensable tool in their day to day. Paying with your smartphone and carrying other loyalty cards stored on your mobile is a great advantage, especially for those of us who have small pockets. Android 11 introduces a novelty when it comes to paying with your mobile that allows you to save time by showing the cards when you press the power button.
In order to pay more quickly in Android 11 we see a renewed shortcut menu that shows those cards that we have previously configured from the Google payments app. When you do this, they will appear on a screen that appears when you hold down the power button for a few seconds.
Add cards to Google Pay
Google Pay is usually installed by default in most of the customization layers on the market. If not, all you have to do to use the company’s payments app is download the app from the Play Store. To do this, we leave the link here:
Once you have it installed and you have granted the appropriate permissions, you must add the cards you want to find when you press the power button on your smartphone.
The process is very simple, because you just have to click on add a card, and take a photo of it through the interface that appears on the screen. The application will take care of recognizing the card number and all it will ask you to do is confirm the security code on the back. If your bank cards are compatible with the system, you will see it added to the application.
Once we have our credit, debit or loyalty cards added to our app, it is time to configure the mobile to activate the payment shortcuts .
Your cards from the lock button
If you have done the previous step correctly, now you can make mobile payments by pressing the lock button for a few seconds. In addition, you can configure it as follows.
Set the power menu
The key to add your cards to the power button is in the menu of your smartphone. Inside you will find an option called ‘Power menu’ that allows you to activate the cards and passes option to ‘access your payment methods and boarding passes by holding the power button’.
The most appropriate thing is that you use the search engine of the configuration app to enter ‘power menu’ or ‘lock menu’, since each just customized can change the route to reach these options slightly.
Hold a long press
Once you have activated the switch, you will see that when you press the lock button , also known as the on / off key, in addition to the options to turn off or restart the mobile and emergency calls (depending on your operating system), your credit card associated with Google Pay will also appear.
In this way, you will only have to press the button and activate the NFC (if you have not already done so) to pass your smartphone over the dataphone and pay for your purchases. In the event that you do not know how to enable this technology, you should go to Settings> Connected devices or Connections> Connection preferences (although depending on the customization layer you could find the NFC function directly)> enable NFC. Even within this section, you will find the Contactless payment option in which you can choose the default payment application and Use default application (Always or Except if there is another payment application open).
If you click on the icon with the 3 dots that appears on the card, you could directly access the settings of the Google payments app to configure your payment methods, add cards, set one as the default or delete the ones you want.
Why doesn’t the function appear?
This function was available, initially, for Google Pixel phones, but soon other models have been adding it. Of course, not all will offer them because, for example, OxygenOS allows it in its OnePlus, but OPPO, in ColorOS 11, does not. The function, if it is active in your operating system, is compatible in all countries that support contactless payments.
However, if you are going to travel to another country, you can always check on the official Google page whether or not contactless payment is supported in that region through this app from the Mountain View company.
It is safe?
The security of this system is exactly the same as if we use the Google Pay application directly. The cards will only appear when we press the power button if the mobile is unlocked, in the same way that only then could we access the payment app. If the smartphone is protected by fingerprint, PIN or password, the only thing that we will achieve by keeping the power button pressed is that the card is shown, yes, but first demanding the unlock code before taking another step.
Beyond this, the system ensures that, when paying, your card information is not transferred for each sale, but a unique encrypted number for each merchant. In addition, from the cloud, you can cancel the cards stored in Google Pay.
The change with Android 12
As of Android 11, we were able to enjoy the so-called on or off menu on our mobile devices. In it, we found a series of quick controls such as payment with the phone or the simple fact of having a much more simplified control of home automation. However, with the arrival of Android 12, the simplification changed for the worse, at least that is the opinion of most of the users who have this version of Google’s operating system.
However, if you have a phone with this operating system and you don’t know where the quick access to Google Pay is, don’t worry, because it hasn’t gone away, but its location has changed places. From that version on, we will find the shortcuts to Google Pay and the home automation control in the smartphone’s own quick settings.
And not only this, but we can also see on the lock screen , specifically, in the lower right part of the panel, a shortcut that will take us to display the credit or debit cards that we have added to the payment application. In addition, we can customize it so that, on the left side at the bottom, the function to control the devices in our house also appears. If it doesn’t appear by default, you should go to Settings> Display> Lock screen> Show cards.