LED notifications do not work

Help Fairphone 3
,
94

I’m not missing LED notifications, personally, but I’m always in favour of having options rather than simply not having something without a choice.
That being said, you just can not take this feature for granted anymore with Android, it seems …

https://www.phonearena.com/news/This-app-is-made-for-consumers-with-a-phone-missing-an-LED-notification-light_id117307

“There are a number of Android phone owners who are upset because their device does not have an LED notification light.”

http://www.samsungsfour.com/tutorials/list-of-galaxy-smartphones-with-and-without-led-notification.html

“I am writing this article because a lot people are asking me which are the Samsung Galaxy Smartphones with LED notification and the ones with out it.”

https://www.phonearena.com/news/Versus-For-and-against-LED-notification-lights-in-phones_id114862

“It’s true - one of the seemingly signature features of Android devices is dying a slow death. The LED notification light that was once briskly blinking on most Android devices will likely soon go the way of removable batteries and 3.5mm audio jacks.”

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95

Not to mention FM radio :wink:

At least we got another radio in return: NFC :wink:

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96

Too bad that there is no source code to help Fairphone. :frowning:

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97

Yeah, that’s what I thought. Guess I am not getting into Android development then :smiley:

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98

I just noticed that it at least shows a low battery warning by slowly blinking red. I’ve seen that for the first time today because of the great battery life. But the usual color when charging should be steady red and not white.

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99

fair phone fist edition owner since nearby 6 years.
Time for FP3.
Most importent for me before selling it: is the problem with the notification light solvable?

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100

Welcome to the community forum.

This is not yet known.

From a layman’s point of view it should be solvable, because obviously the LED works for the currently defined purpose (battery status while charging) and there’s a Service test deep in the Android settings which can control and show the different colours, so it should be usable by Android.

It seems “just” the implementation is missing so that the Android notification system can use the LED, but there’s no official info yet on how complicated this might be, and how much time this might take … or whether it will be done at all.

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101

Got his reply from support after I mentioned this thread:

The LED notification for Fairphone 3 is only dedicated to charging statuses. It is unfortunately not a feature to assign LED colors to notifications or other statuses. We will report your feedback to our developers for possible future implementations.

So, nothing new on that side.

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102

On a side note: I’m testing the 1st preview of Lineage 17.0 (Android 10) on my Fairphone 2 now. And guess what: no LED notifications (only tested with incoming text message so far).
Looks like this is no longer a base feature of Android. Not sure if it has been part of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) in the past.

103

I wouldn’t judge too hastily based on the first available beta of LineageOS 17.0.
In the testing phase there has been trouble with the LED before.

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104

FP3 uses Android 9.

LineageOS 17 is equivalent to Android 10.

LineageOS 16 is equivalent to Android 9.

It worked in LineageOS 16 on FP2, but it does not work on Android 9 on FP3.

105

It definitely has been and still is part of AOSP - controlling the notification LED’s behaviour is part of the public API:

The only change was the introduction of notification channels in Android 8.

The actual implementations for the LED hardware are of course vendor specific, but the interfaces can be seen here:

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106

Ah yeah, together with what linusg wrote that makes sense. Some change was introduced in Android 8.

107

Jan 2020, still no updates?
I’m new to FP and still finding my way around my FP3, same issue here no led notification…WTFact? Seriously?

Not a deal breaker for me but if FP are all about a better environment,well either enable the led out of respect for Android users buying your products or remove the led entirely so as not to waste raw materials.

This is… weird.

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108

Well, what I did not get yet is: If you enable the diagnostics-menu, you can make the LED light up in different colours. So, why can’t the FP3 hardware be used for the message-notify-LED?

Thanks!

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109

Unless I missed something, until now nobody officially says it can’t be used. It just isn’t used just now. The difference is that there’s still hope it can be done with an update.

But the Fairphone 3 is not the only phone missing this feature.

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110

its no problem for me (cause it only “makes” additional stress) :wink: I also hope, that it is only a software issue.

A lot of people would like to have this function.

111

I once had a company smartphone without a notification LED at all. I am still alive.

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112

I don’t use LED notifications on my FP2 and have even gone to some lengths to completely disable the LED, but the availability of LED notifications is important to a lot of people. So far I’ve been in touch with three hearing-impaired users who rely almost entirely on LED notifications to know when they receive a message. Happily, they’re content to use ambient notifications as a stopgap until the LED thing gets resolved.

I’ve asked around and I know it’s something that’s being looked into; hopefully it will be resolved in an upcoming update.

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113

I would have refused it.