The important qualification is that this is not a universal, stable baseline feature for every Samsung phone. It emerged during the One UI 9 beta period, rollout and module availability vary by device and market, and Good Lock itself warns that some devices are unsupported. The best way to approach it is as an optional productivity experiment, not as a reason to overwrite every familiar navigation habit on day one.
What Home Up’s new gesture system adds
Home Up is a Good Lock module aimed at improving the One UI Home experience. Reporting on its 2026 rollout describes a significantly broader gesture system than conventional Android navigation gestures.
The available inputs reportedly span four finger counts—two, three, four, and five fingers—and nine gesture types:
- Swipe left, right, up, or down
- Pinch in or pinch out
- Single tap, double tap, or long tap
That creates up to 36 possible finger-count-and-gesture combinations before assigning any actions. It does not mean every user should create 36 shortcuts. The reported system offers 27 actions to choose from, but the useful opportunity is to reserve a small number for actions that are both frequent and awkward to reach through ordinary controls.
Reported settings also include swipe-distance adjustment, visual glow feedback, vibration feedback, per-app exclusions, an option to permit gestures in full-screen mode, and an option to turn them off in the phone keypad. Continuous swipe actions for volume and brightness are also reported.
Taken together, those controls address the central problem with adding advanced gestures: avoiding accidental activation. A shortcut that works only when a user consciously changes grip can be productive; one that triggers while typing, gaming, pinch-zooming a photo, or handling a call will quickly become a nuisance.
Eligibility comes before customization
Samsung expanded the One UI 9 beta program on September 1, 2026, to include the Galaxy S25, S25+, S25 Ultra, and S25 FE. Samsung identified India, Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States among the selected markets, with enrollment handled through Samsung Members.
That announcement is encouraging for S25 owners, but it should not be read as a blanket guarantee. The earlier reported Home Up rollout was initially limited to South Korea, while beta software and Good Lock modules can be subject to regional, device, and software-version restrictions. Availability on one S25 Ultra does not prove availability on another in a different market or release channel.
There is a version-management issue as well. Home Up 18.0.00.24 was a Samsung-signed Android 16-or-later build uploaded in July 2026 and is associated with the period when the capability emerged. It is not the newest build in the available record: later versions 18.0.00.30, 18.0.00.32, and 18.0.00.36 were indexed, with 18.0.00.36 dated September 9, 2026.
In practical terms, users should check the Home Up version actually offered through their supported Good Lock installation and update path rather than chasing an older version number mentioned in early coverage. Software behavior, action names, and availability can change across beta builds.
A sensible way to build a gesture set
The reported input list makes it tempting to assign a command to every motion. That is usually the wrong design. Gesture systems become reliable when their meanings are easy to remember and physically distinct from normal actions.
A cautious starting configuration might use just three principles:
- Use a finger count that is unlikely to happen accidentally. Two-finger gestures can be convenient but may conflict with common content manipulation. Three- or four-finger motions may be safer for consequential shortcuts.
- Match motion to result. An upward gesture can feel natural for an action that brings something forward; a downward gesture can fit capture, dismissal, or access to something below. These are personal conventions, not Samsung defaults.
- Keep high-risk actions hard to trigger. Commands that change the device state, disrupt an app, or alter a workflow deserve more deliberate input than a routine convenience action.
Screenshot and split-screen actions are reported among the available choices. Assigning them to a selected multi-finger swipe could reduce the number of buttons or panels needed to reach them, but an exact mapping—such as three fingers down for a screenshot or four fingers up for split screen—is a user-created choice, not a documented default. Whether a particular mapping appears in a specific beta build should be confirmed on the handset.
The same restraint applies to continuous volume and brightness controls. The feature supports continuous swipe actions for those settings, but reports do not establish a universal mapping such as two fingers up for volume or a horizontal gesture for brightness. If available, these can be useful when assigned sparingly because a continuous control can make a large unintended adjustment if sensitivity is too high.
Tune recognition before deciding the feature failed
The configuration controls matter as much as the action list. Multi-finger gestures are inherently more variable than a single swipe: finger placement, hand size, a case lip, screen protector friction, and whether the phone is held one- or two-handed can all affect recognition.
The reported swipe-distance setting should therefore be treated as a calibration tool. No reliable evidence establishes a single default value, and there is no meaningful universal “best” distance. Instead, begin conservatively, test the chosen gestures several times in common postures, and then adjust only if recognition is either too eager or too difficult.
Glow and vibration feedback can help during that testing phase. Feedback tells the user whether the phone recognized a gesture even before its eventual result becomes obvious. Vibration may be especially useful for a command that changes volume or brightness continuously. Conversely, users who want fewer interruptions may later prefer to minimize feedback once their chosen motions are predictable.
The most valuable safeguard may be app exclusions. Exclude applications where multi-touch is already fundamental—games, image editors, mapping tools, drawing apps, remote-desktop clients, and any app with frequent pinch gestures are obvious candidates. This is an inference from how such apps work, rather than a Samsung-published exclusion list, but it follows directly from the potential overlap between multi-finger controls and application touch input.
The keypad switch deserves similar attention. Touch mistakes during calls can be more disruptive than a missed shortcut, so disabling the feature in the phone keypad is a sensible default for most people. Full-screen use is more contextual: enabling it increases the places where shortcuts work, but it can also create more conflicts in video, games, and immersive apps. Test that setting with the specific apps used most often rather than assuming one choice suits the entire phone.
Do not confuse Home Up with Samsung’s other shortcut tools
Samsung’s customization options are modular, and treating them as one feature leads to muddled expectations.
Home Up is the relevant module for the reported multi-finger gesture system. It is the tool to investigate for two- through five-finger swipes, pinches, and taps.
One Hand Operation+ is different. It extends gesture controls along the left and right edges of the display, enabling actions such as opening the notification shade or the overview screen. For someone who wants thumb-reachable navigation on a large device, side-edge gestures may solve the problem more directly than multi-finger shortcuts.
RegiStar has separately been described as supporting back-tap actions and configurable press-and-hold behavior for the power button. It is a better conceptual match for shortcuts that should work while holding the phone normally without placing multiple fingers on the screen.
Finally, Galaxy users can customize the physical side button through Settings under Advanced features and Side button. That is a built-in option distinct from both Home Up and Good Lock gesture modules.
The practical lesson is to assign each tool a different job. Use Home Up for deliberate multi-touch commands, One Hand Operation+ for edge-reachable navigation, and the side button or back-tap-style options for actions that need to work without looking at the display. Duplicating the same action across all of them makes a phone harder to learn, not faster to use.
The large-screen case is real, but not exclusive to Samsung
The Galaxy S25 Ultra’s 6.9-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display makes interface reachability a legitimate concern, especially for one-handed use. The difference is not merely subjective: Google lists the standard Pixel 7 at 6.3 inches, meaning the S25 Ultra offers notably more display area but also more distance between a hand’s resting position and on-screen targets.
That does not make multi-finger gestures automatically better. A large screen can make a multi-finger motion more comfortable because there is space to spread a hand, yet it can also make an upward or downward sweep harder while holding the device securely. Users with smaller hands, reduced dexterity, temporary hand injuries, or a preference for one-handed operation may find side-edge gestures, the side button, or conventional navigation more accessible.
There is also a broader interface-design counterargument: custom gestures can be difficult to discover, hard to transfer to another device, and impossible for a colleague or family member to infer. The most effective setup is therefore not the most elaborate one. It is the one that preserves familiar behavior while removing a few repeated points of friction.
A beta-era feature worth testing carefully
Home Up’s reported multi-finger system is a meaningful expansion of what Good Lock can do. With four supported finger counts, nine reported input forms, 27 assignable actions, feedback controls, exclusions, and context switches, it provides unusual flexibility without requiring users to replace One UI’s core navigation model.
But flexibility is not the same as reliability. Galaxy S25 owners should first confirm their One UI 9 beta eligibility and local module availability, update to the currently offered Home Up release, and build a small gesture set around real repetitive tasks. Start with non-destructive actions, use exclusions aggressively, and treat exact online mappings as ideas to test rather than settings that will necessarily exist on every phone.
For the right user, especially one adapting a large Galaxy screen around their own reach and workflow, that measured approach can turn Good Lock from a cosmetic add-on into a genuinely useful control layer.