They were a good indicator for notifications that are missed when you were away from phone.
I also love notification LEDs.
I’m pretty sure the main reason for them disappearing is the displays extending all the way to to edge. There isn’t any room left where to place it.
Also, on phones with always-on display, you can use the display to show notifications, the led is redundant.
But still, I find them really useful and am sad to see them being phased out.
My phone does not have a LED notification light. It does however have a little green LED hidden near the front facing camera which is within the screen area. This light comes on only when using the front facing camera and I assume is some kind of indicator light. Why this can’t be dual purpose or why another LED or even small sections of screen can’t be used for notifications is beyond me.
I think the real reason they removed the notification light is to make people use their phones more. Now instead of a glance to see a light I actually have to touch my screen which could allow additional scans of my figerprints or face and could contribute to data tracking when I am most active on my phone.
Personally, I want that light to have one purpose and one purpose only, which is to tell me when the camera is on. It should be hardwired into the circuit powering that front facing camera and not touched by software at all, otherwise you open up the risk of someone recording you with the indicator disabled.
I believe that’s actually a legal requirement in some jurisdictions.
I didn’t think of this use case of the light. I honestly just assumed that most cameras would be able to bypass the light and record you anyway because I have very little trust left in big tech companies. Either way with our screen advancements it should be possible to embed a small LED or use a small section of screen for notification lights.
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There’s a few apps you could use if you have an android phone with an OLED screen!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xander.android.notifybuddy
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anker.ledmeknow
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jamworks.alwaysondisplay&hl=en_US&gl=US
Off topic a little but I stop most of my messaging app to notify me. And my life is so much more peaceful. I told everyone when they connect with me on any messaging app that it’ll take time for me to answer. I’ll read it when I remember to read it, which I do like once or twice a day. They adapt to that and if it’s really important they’ll call.
This is the way.
Its not natural to feel “connected” all the time
smh this mf isn’t bathing in the source
This is the way
While we’re off topic, you should also consider grey-scaling your phone most of the time, only turning it back to color when needed. A lot of psychological trickery goes into icon and notification color to catch you eye, and it’s much less interesting in drab grey
Sony Xperia user here, I recommend your Next phone should be a Sony. Not only does it still have notification LEDs, it also has an SD card slot and a headphone jack…and a 5500mah battery. Will never go back to Samsung again
How long does Sony support their hardware with OS updates? Do they lock down the ability to run custom roms?
I left Samsung because their flagship phones lost support after a couple of years and they made it harder and harder to load custom ROMs.
I move to apple mostly because it is the easiest to support my kids on and they support the phones for what seems like forever, making my hand me down phones much more valuable for much longer. I’d consider jumping back to android if I could expect a phone to be useful and up to date for 4ish years.
I’m still rocking my Pixel 3 with no complaints! I dumped Samsung once the Pixels came out. So much less bullshit preloaded into it.
Are you on android 13?
Hand me downs vs. using them until they break.
My 1 Xperia IV has an unlocked bootloader, headphone jack and is water proof. Don’t know how long they will support this phone but I still get updates.
Have you had an instance where you have to relock the bootloader and return the phone to factory state for an RMA? If yes, how did it go?
Oh gawd, this takes me back to the cute little X10 Mini Pro I had. Such a handy little device for the time, had a slide out keyboard. I miss those.
except they price their phone ridiculously high, so no
Same. I love my Xperia, and never realized how much I missed the notification LED.
Higher end Smartphones have anyway always on displays. And the led needs screenspace - which should be maximized. That’s why the notch on phones etc. was introduced.
Yeah, it’s basically just this. AODs took over for notification lights.
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https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xander.android.notifybuddy&hl=en_US&gl=US
Also Some samsung phones have a “edge notification” netting … it’s a bit larger but it works when the screen is upside down which is nice.
I still think it’s a terrible compromise. I actually looke specifically for a phone without one and ended up with a Sony Xperia. Sure, the front isn’t 100% screen and I have tiny bars above and below the screen, but who cares?
I have one of the Galaxy Notes that has both LED light and Always On, and you just made me realize I pay attention to the Always On display more than even noticing the LED light.
The led can just be put in the speaker grill though, I think my old HTC did this.
When you have questions like this, the answer is almost always money.
For this particular question, it is money - the cost of the LEDs (which is of course minimal, but multiplied by millions of phones), but also manufacturing (need to have a hole in the case to let the LED shine though which can let water ingress into phone). To make those holes water tight would add more cost so instead they decided to use the screen itself as the notification method. I think Motorola’s implementation of this was the best - they had their always on display to show notifications and a single tap would let you see what the message was even if the phone was locked.
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I gotta say, sometimes I miss my fully customized LED on my blackberry back in the day. It could be in the bottom of a gym bag and I’d still know if I missed a Google Talk message (green) or a Facebook alert (dark blue) or an email (light blue), etc etc etc.
I had a Galaxy Nexus with a custom ROM and was able to set the led to any color I wanted per app. It was awesome.
Did it go through multiple colors when you had notifications from different apps at the same time?
Yes, being able to set different colors to show up depending on the app is so cool. Still an option in LineageOS with a section for Notification LED.
I don’t understand how Blackberry managed to drive itself into the ground like it did. I need a modern BB 9900 ASAP.
Shit management + greed
With OLED, your entire screen is an array of possible LED notifications :)
It doesn’t illuminate the same though ☹️ . Have a new phone with no LED and an old OnePlus phone I use as a back up with a dedicated LED.
iPhone = Settings / Accessibility / Audio Visual “LED Flash for Alerts” (at the bottom)
I’m pretty sure it’s just to cut costs / complexity / part counts in lower end phones, and higher end phones will use an always on display.
Though worth noting that the Nothing Phone 1 & 2 include pretty snazzy LEDs on the back that are used for notifications amongst other things.
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I get so many trash notifications it would just be on all the time and I’d turn it off.
I forgot all about notification LEDs when I got a smartwatch
i am still mad they got rid of it on xiaomi note 10 pro… i mean yhea you can activate a thing for show notification on the screen but slurp slurp the batery. (and future burn in)
I’m guessing that with everything they cram into those things nowadays, every last nook and cranny is valuable space to be used.
A little blinken light is probably not high on the list of features competing for that space.iPhones use the camera flash LED for this exact function, no reason Android phones can’t do the same.
No it does not. The led flash occurs when the message is sent. It doesn’t persist. The entire point the notification led on Samsung phones is to tell you repetitively that you have an unread message.
That means if you look at your phone an hour after you received the message you’ll know you have an unread message without having to interact with the phone. It’s a nice feature for someone that doesn’t like constantly checking their phone.
Besides the flash led is super obnoxious. I can’t imagine why you’d want this flashing every time you get a message. I can’t imagine it being great for battery life either.
Why did LED notification lights silently got removed from phone?
What’s the normal sound of removing feature from the phone?
On more serious note, this is why I have smart watch.
And there it is, not only is it cheaper to produce a phone with less features, you’ve been given a reason to make another purchase to replace the now missing feature
(Not saying you don’t need a smart watch, I have one too and it’s much better than an led! Just the removal of a feature to make something else paid seem more attractive is a common one now)
This doesn’t really make much sense in this context though.
All iPhones have the feature built-in by using the camera’s flash LED. Androids have the same camera flash LEDs, but the software side simply doesn’t use them for this purpose. There’s no “cheaper production” here since the components are already there. Dedicated notification lights are gone, but the flash LED is efficient enough to serve the same purpose these days
Pretty sure you can still enable the flash LED on Galaxy phones under accessibility but I don’t have one to check - not sure about other android phones but I’m sure there’s a third party app that does it anyway.
You’ve misunderstood the original post, many android phones had an RGB LED on the device just for notifications as well as the flash. That RGB LED is now gone, so it’s hardware that’s been removed which makes the device cost less to produce, at least in theory.
What’s the normal sound of removing feature from the phone?
People bitching and complaining about it being removed.
