Oppo’s Bubble selfie screen is crying out for Qi2

The Oppo Bubble is a smart second screen for your phone, one that can be attached and detached at will, connects wirelessly, and serves as either a selfie screen or a wireless camera remote. It’s the best version of this idea I’ve used yet, but also a frustrating reminder that it could be even better if only Oppo and other Android OEMs would get on board with Qi2.

The Bubble is a bit like a smaller — much, much smaller — version of Insta360’s Snap or the Dockcase Selfix phone case. It’s a tiny puck, just 7mm thick and 27.5g, with a 1.73-inch circular OLED touchscreen. It has its own 550mAh battery — though Oppo won’t say how long to expect that to last — and because it connects to your phone wirelessly, there’s no need to worry about a cable, though there’s a USB-C port for charging when you need to.

It’s pointedly simple. You can access the phone’s camera to take photos or record video, including cycling through a few basic zoom options across the rear lenses. The screen is circular, so it’s not the ideal way to frame a rectangular photo, but it works well enough. And while it’s a touchscreen, there’s no support for tap-to-focus.

Slap the Bubble on the back of your phone with the help of a magnetic mount and it becomes an easier way to take selfies with the rear lenses. But with 33 feet of range, it can also double as a camera remote. Oppo includes a silicon bumper case and a cute star-shaped lanyard attachment in the box, suggesting it thinks this might be just as popular a use case as attaching the Bubble directly to the phone. Leaning into the cutesy aesthetic, the usual wallpaper options are joined by a few digital “pets” to pick from, though these merely cycle through a few animations — there’s nothing interactive about them.

There are three screen brightness presets, a shortcut to lock the display, and a single button that doubles as power and an optional camera shutter. Unlike the Insta360 Snap, there’s no option for a ringlight. Since it taps directly into the Oppo camera app, rather than mirroring your display, you can’t use it with other imaging apps like Instagram — but you also don’t risk accidentally mirroring private material to a second screen without realizing.

The obvious downside to the Bubble is that it’s Oppo-only. It works with the company’s Reno 16 phones, also launched outside China today, along with a few other Reno and Find X phones. But you can’t use this with any other Android devices, which means it won’t be an option for most people. The upside of the locked-down design is that the Bubble can pair to a compatible phone in seconds and can access the camera even while the phone is locked.

Then there are the magnets. Oppo still hasn’t released a single smartphone with Qi2 charging magnets inside, meaning to attach the Bubble to the back of your phone you’ll need to either buy a magnetic phone case or stick a magnetic ring (included with the Bubble) directly to the back of your phone. It’s frankly daft that this magnetic accessory works exclusively for phones that don’t have any magnets, but that’s the mess Android manufacturers, Google aside, have made for themselves by stubbornly refusing to adopt Qi2 so far.

It doesn’t help that the included stick-on magnetic ring is simply too weak for the job. The Bubble slides about all too easily, and I’d definitely be worried about dropping it. The stronger magnets on Oppo’s official Reno 16 magnetic case work better, but you still can’t use the button without a second finger to brace the Bubble from the other side — just pressing it is enough to push the whole device off its magnetic mount.

The Bubble isn’t perfect, and its €129 price (about $150) is markedly more than the $80 Insta360 Snap. But its portability and simplicity might make it worth the extra outlay for Oppo phone owners, and I expect to see other manufacturers copying this idea before too long. But can we have Qi2 with it next time please?

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge