Looking at all the features that older phones uses to have compared to newer ones, I never hear anyone talk about the removal of the notification LED. I personally really liked that feature, being able to see if I got an email, a text or missed a call without turning on my phone was awesome. My Samsung note 8 had this feature, but to my knowledge, newer phones (in the major companies anyway) have abandoned this feature. Did everyone else unanimously agree they don’t care for this feature?
I have one on mine, but my case obscures it so it’s not much help. It’s not like I really look at my phone other than when I am actively using it tho.
I think it just got sort of replaced by the “always on display” as Android calls it, where the screen is “off” but still displays the system clock and any notification icons received. For me, it’s accomplished the same thing while being more specific than the LED
It’s also worth noting that most phones these days always have at least one item in the “notification” bar at some point. Like, right now I’ve got two apps taking up a slot, and Google’s weather thing up there, and that’s a normal day.
The LED would always be on.
I am pretty sure you can exclude permanent notifications.
Nah. They used to flash different colours for different events, and you could filter what created an LED event. Even with the OLED screen, leaving the notification/clock on all day drains the battery noticeably more than having it disabled. I find it better to only have that on at night when charging. Not to mention you didn’t need to look at the screen. You’d see the flashing light and know there’s something to check.
But, what they COULD do is simulate a series of LEDs properly with OLED. That should in theory take a similar amount of power (for the screen at least) as a real LED. But, I suspect driving part of the screen would require the screen controller active. I suspect the older phones with LEDs had some separate low power driver storing the most recent events from when the phone last “woke up” using minimal power for the flashing LEDs.
So, in all it genuinely is a missing feature that has no equivalent in modern phones.
I use third party apps to disable permanent icons, for me it’s the alarm. I always have repeating alarms on, so the icon is pointless, I disabled it in the app settings. I’d like for a first party way to do that, but oh well
I think my Xperia 1 has one, since it doesn’t do the punchole nonsense. There’s definitely a LED in the top bezel, and I think it’s color coded. To be honest, since I have a watch it’s not as relevant anyway. I do miss legacy features enough to have moved to this thing, though.
I like notification LEDs, but I don’t use them for notifications. Instead as a battery/charging indicator.
For notifications I have Mi Band. This allows me to always have my phone on silent.Fun fact about one phone I have: The Moto G5s Plus does have a notification LED, but there’s no way to use it with stock ROM. The hardware is there, but it’s not used. I am not sure what weird decision has led there. Anyway, it can be used in PixelExperience (custom ROM).
I think there were multiple Motorola phones that had the LED unused in stock ROMs, which makes me think it was a patent/legal issue, rather than an engineering decision.
I think very few people cared. The Nothing Phone has a feature similar to that though, where the back of the phone lights up depending on what’s happening (notification, call, etc).
It was the first thing I noticed missing when upgrading to a new phone (OnePlus 5 to Galaxy S22). It sucked, always on display uses too much battery and all I wanted was a colored notification LED.
I’m now using aodNotify (Free version is enough, but I decided to pay once because it was so good) and now I got a little animation in the notification color of my choice again.
It died like 10 years ago for AOD and bigger screens
I kind of miss it. It was discrete and useful.
AOD is kind of more discreet tho
Notification LEDs kinda only make sense for phones without OLED since you can simply display a notification with minimal energy construction.
Also phones get so many notifications these days that the light has mostly lost its meaning. Last time I had a phone with one was around 2018 and the light was pretty much blinking at all times.
Meh, personally I only care if I missed a call, got a text, or an email. Only need 3 colors for that. Miss my Nexus 6 so much now…
My Zenfone 8 has a notification LED. I really appreciate it, because all I have to do is look over and see if the light is blinking to see if I got a text.
I miss mine so much. aodNotify works good though, flashing a ring around the camera similar to the LED.
My phone has a blinking white light. Pretty useless with the always-on display showing the notification icon, but it does work. I’m pretty sure the two phones I had before that had one as well, my Oneplus One had a customisable colour per app as well.
I think manufacturers could implement this by simply lighting a few pixels on the always-on display if they wanted to, but I guess there’s just not enough interest. Why brightly light a few LEDs when you can light an entire shape dimly? Add a basic clock too and you’ve got a modern AOD lock screen.
I missed it (green meant SMS! light blue meant GroupMe!) but Glance (Ambient Display, AOD’s) on my Nokia was a fine replacement (albeit not from across the room obviously) and I eventually got on the custom tones/vibrations train for individuals so I know who it is already.
Now iPhone people who use that option in the menu to use their phone camera flash as a notification light, I fear you.
The iPhone can flash the camera LED for alerts. It’s under accessibility-> audio/visual. Not sure about android but check in your phone’s accessibility features there’s probably something similar.
I didn’t realize the LED was no longer ubiquitous! I rely on mine, and I take it a step further with missed notification reminder for a repeating audio tone every few minutes. I don’t like having to stare at my phone all day long looking for work messages.
iPhones definitely have this feature in the accessibility options still. I use it.
They don’t mean flashing the flashlight. They mean a small (often RGB) LED that’s usually next to the front camera.
It does the same thing. That’s just nitpicking.
No, not really.
One is an annoying fairly bright flash on the back of the phone and the other is a small dim LED that mainly shows information passively by shining constantly until a notification is addressed or acknowledged.
The notification LED can be seen discreetly by just glancing at your phone at any time, the flashlight on the other hand actively interrupts you and is useless if you didn’t see it when it blinked.
They serve different purposes.
