hello everyone, i recently bought a FP5 but i noticed that the notification leds are no longer blinking, i would like to understand if i have made some setting error or there is some other kind of problem. For me the blinking of the led is important and I thank anyone who can help me.
1 Like
Welcome to the Fairphone community.
Starting with the FP4, no Fairphone has notification LEDs anymore. So they can’t flash on the FP5 at all 
. But you can use the Always On Display (AoD) instead.
3 Likes
Thank you Incanus, after 17 years of BlackBerry i landed in the FP world, so i’m still a beginner. It was so usefull for me to set different led colors for each app.
1 Like
Welcome in the modern times, for me a simple LED is so 1990s
1 Like
While Incanus’ suggestion of using AoD instead is exactly what is designed to substitute/succeed LED notifications, you might want to have an eye on battery consumption if you choose to use AoD. For the time being, AoD seems to not be as energy-efficient on the FP5 yet as intended, see FP5 doesnt seem to turn OLED pixels off when displaying a black image/video and when using the "Always on Display" feature
8 Likes
I’m pretty sure that LED is modern solutions, in any field ;).
I agree with @gdl , LED notification is super usefull, I miss it on my FP5 !
4 Likes
@MrOreo didn’t you mention an app last week that creates quasi-LED notifications on your FP5 without draining the battery?
A single LED? I doubt.
I prefer a display that can show me a message in clear text, instead a simple LED which only shows me: “There is something, please grab me and check.”
Yes, @urs_lesse and @PerfectJam, that’s right. I actually got this advice from another thread on this forum. I also do miss the notification LED quite a lot, but the “LED Blinker” app does the job quite well for me:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ledblinker
https://mo-blog.de/en_US/led-blinker/
The free license is enough for me and quite configurable. You can assign colors to different apps, choose where and how big the “LEDs” appear on the screen and it can even show several “LEDs” at once. This definitely consumes less battery than the AoD, especially as quite often, when I see the screen LEDs, I tap the screen on to see what the notifications are about which removes the “LEDs” from the screen and turns it off afterwards.
So: Not the same as a physical LED, but a good compromise and I am happy with it.
3 Likes
Hi,
before taking the chance to express myself on the topic, I would like to ask if there’s a map for visible components on the FP5, as I don’t understand why are there 3 small holes on the top right edge of the screen under the uppermost audio exit -if one is the selfie camera flash: can’t the other two be actual LEDs?
I think I remember a post or something for the FP4 where someone noticed it, was replied they were indeed meant to be LEDs, but then the feature was not implemented. But then someone managed to make them work. Wizardry as it seems without sources I still ask here if anyone knows better ;D
Now with my opinion on this…
I joined in into this discussion, as I was almost tempted not to buy a FP after discovering they removed notification leds, following a pattern similar to the jack entrance removal and lead by products developed by corporates which are far from making this choice for “futuristic/altruistic” purpose. That being said, we can of course turn this particular change in the industry standard as another good chance to use devices in a less toxic way, but it should be important to not assume good faith into their design (not by fairphone, I trust they actually believe in their user-base to strive for a different use of smartphone, though it still seems like an adaptation rather than a choice to me).
I say this because personally I’ve struggled a lot to deconstruct my own perceived need to passively grab/check the phone compulsively, coming to a point where I’ve set only truly important notifications to activate LEDs and ended up not to grab the phone for days if I didn’t need to actively contact someone.
Now, due to the FP not having LEDs, I’m back to having to take it up and open the screen to check regularly in order to not miss even important messages. Always-on-Screen is not a true alternative, it’s a blatant adaptation, be it for the battery drawbacks or the polarized protective glass or flipcases which requires you to go and check the phone closely. And no: say polarized screens/flipcase are “not the future” while AoS is -well that’s yet another excuse to justify “fashion”, not standards, and that’s an industry geared towards a fake sense of freedom of choice as it only works fine if you play by current rules changing as the top grossing corporates decide otherwise to maximize profits (eg: AoS, which might be convenient for OLED screens, won’t be as efficient anyway if OLEDs goes out of fashion at big brands for any reason which is historically rare to be led by true longterm user needs).
All in all, Fairphone presents itself as an alternative to all of this, and -though I still believe in their good faith- now that they’re a rather big company they should not fall into considering these as irrelevant details to change the industry for better.
At the end of the day, I’d be glad to hear they actually thought this out and left the LEDs dormant on that screen corner, waiting for the user base to notice and make them activate in next OS release as a required feature.
Rant out kindly,
Mate
I’m 100% sure there is no LED that could be activated and this was the same already on the FP4.
3 Likes
I guess, it’s the proximity sensor behind these three tiny holes on the top end of the screen.
3 Likes
Thanks for the replies.
In case too bad, I did also think about the proximity sensor, but then again: that’s 1st for flash, 2nd for proximity, 3rd is for what?
Strange Fairphone didn’t disclose a clear screen map after having already published the blueprint schematics…
Anyway, I’m trying the LEDblinker app and it truly isn’t sustainable for me, keeps having bugs and takes it’s own amount of battery in addition to actual screen-on consumption -not even being opensource there’s little to do for tinkering and moreover has paywalled features.
I guess, paradoxically, Fairphone will be responsible for the comeback of some toxic utilization behaviors and inefficient alerts for me 
I guess I’m privileged enough to pay the price, as I was for the actual economic cost, but I cannot ignore this time is not justified by truly fair design choices and that’s sad
Just my 2 cents: In my opinion it is important to have some kind of persistant visual notifications. Opinions may differ, but for me this is crucial.
I was really happy with LEDs (and I am still, as I use the FP3+ with LED). Apps, missed calls, etc. have their own colors, so you can see with the blink of an eye if there is something important or not.
But truth to be told: Almost no phone has LEDs anymore. And that’s not a big problem, as AoD can achive pretty much the same. As soon FP solves the bug with the very high power consumption, I am also thinking of buying a FP5.
3 Likes
The only one responsible for your behaviors is you, not the phone, not the manufacturer, not the user in this community.
front camera don’t have flash, use full-white lcd screen as “flash” helper, above lcd you have:
- front camera
- proximity sensor
- ambient light sensor (used for automatic brightness control)
BTW: not tryed, but maybe you can use back flashlight as notification led with some 3rd app
4 Likes
And that is almost taken for granted, psychologically speaking, but then there are also obvious operations of social engineering used by aggressive marketing which are responsible for enforcing core weakness of a person for profit: let’s not hide behind a finger about that otherwise the whole thing of Fairphone trying to provide an alternative is based on… what sorry? They made it clear it’s not just about using fair components but also challenging a way smartphones are (mis)used i.e.: corporate-inducted user behaviors (duh -behaviour!).
I admit I might have been a bit melodramatic with such a sentence, but that is truly what I feel about it, so I felt I could express it clearly provided a further based explanation.
That said, I’m not coming here to ignite a flame or justify myself nor win an argument, just trying to point at a critical issue which might be constructively addressed by the company after having been noticed by the community. So I guess there’s no point for us to argue further if you don’t wanna see my point this way and reply with unproductive statements (nothing personal and rather valuing both our day time) 
Thanks for the reply, though I’m still not sure about it, as the selfie camera is the the circle hole in the middle while the three rectangular spaces are on the right are not lenses AFAIK. So ok the two of them being sensor but the third one remains unexplained to me
Furthermore, the rightmost one is not black-ish as the other two but almost green… suspiciously similar to a mono-coloured led if not a supplementary flashlight.
The workaround of the back flashlight I truly can’t consider it sustainable given the blinding effect it generates and the fact that flashlight (just like the screen and direct sources of light) are the most battery-consuming factors.
At this point I can either hope in the unknown component until I find/receive an official reply by the Fairphone team or push along with others for solving the battery consumption of AoD and asking for an efficient (company-supported why not?) AoD notification app 
Well, in the schematics on page 39 you can see three components which are listed further down in the document again:
- L2602: Top Speaker Connector. Okay, that one obviously doesn’t look through any of these holes.
- U3104: ALS&P Sensor STK33562 which is an ambient light and proximity sensor. This part is rather wide and takes two holes, one for the ambient light and the other one for proximity.
- U3105: RGB Sensor, used for measuring the colour temperature of the ambient light to be able to adapt screen contrast to the surrounding light. This one has an own hole, too.
The information is public, but you need to read it yourself (okay, this particular information you don’t have to read from their docs anymore).
6 Likes
Ignoring the battery consumption with AoD on the FP5 for now …
There are a lot of apps in the playstore, which offer some notification LED kind of functionality.
Some of them let the edges of the screen glow, some the LEDs around the front camera, others simulate an notification LED like some probably want to have it back.
Most of them I could not install as they are payed (or with in app purchases) and I will not purchase an app, which might not work at the end. Also no gapps here and only using the Aurora Store.
E.g. Holey Light - IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository is open source, but only works for Samsung and Pixel. Asked in the TG channel (about support for the FP5) and the feedback was:
The app is built for non standard Google/Samsung apis
So eventually this is the same for some or all the other apps as well.
So long story short:
If anyone knows a free version of such an alternative, let me know!?
(I don’t like the flash light or flash screen ones - to bright and annoying IMHO)
1 Like