Improve your calling experience: Gestures Beta app and flip to silence

If you’re fairly new to Lumia (and perhaps also if you’re not), here are several tips to help you get the most out of your calls.

Microsoft’s free Gestures Beta app can improve your calling experience on your Lumia. This app uses your phone’s accelerometer sensor, which measures the phone’s movement and orientation as well as motions such as lifting your phone or flipping it to silence it.

With the app, you don’t need to tap your Lumia to answer a call or manually select the speaker mode to go hands-free. Here’s how to go touch-free on your Lumia and answer, reject or mute your calls without touching the screen.

To mute your phone’s microphone during a call, place your Lumia on a flat surface with the display facing down. To convert a call to speaker mode, place your Lumia on a flat surface with the display facing up. And to silence incoming calls, place your phone face down.

The next time you get a call on your Lumia, you can answer just by putting your Lumia to your ear—very old-school!

Besides an accelerometer, your Lumia smartphone is loaded with other sensors such as a proximity sensor. Does it
surprise you when your Lumia’s screen goes black when you put your phone to your ear on a call only to turn itself on again after a call? This is mainly to avoid accidental touches or taps on your screen. Read more about the technology in Lumia phones here. 

The Gestures beta app is compatible with all Windows Phone 8.1 devices such as the Lumia 535, Lumia 830 and Lumia 730/735 while the Lumia 630, Lumia 635 and Lumia 530 have limited functionality. Read more about the Gestures Beta app from the Microsoft folks who helped develop it here.

You don’t need the Gestures Beta app to just quickly silence an incoming call. First, you can press the lock key. You can also activate “flip to silence” feature by opening settings and selecting audio. Under enhancements option, toggle switch to left and select flip to silence.