I just love the internet … everybody’s clairvoyant and has insight into every possible life situation of everybody else and the possible choices at any given time, regardless of whether there even are/were any 
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Well, if I tell a opinion here it is mine. And it is only concerning my situation. It is clear to me, that different people have different requirements.
So, for me - as said - it is no problem with the LEDs. For other people around it might be one.
In fact: The LEDs have to be “on board” of the FP3 because it is (or was?) a standardfeature for a long time. So its common to people out there.
Users have to have the choice to turn it off or on.
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I edited my earlier post to make clear what I was referring to … It seems Discourse omits the reference in an answer if the answer is to the post directly above.
There are smartphones without an LED (and not only from fringe vendors), so it seems vendors would not always agree to that reasoning.
I agree. The LED is there, so it should work for notifications, too.
(And I’m also among the ones who don’t need that.)
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Thanks to having root now, we can now start fixing stuff. I’ve used Tasker and build a profile similar to https://forum.xda-developers.com/moto-x-2014/general/howto-notification-led-moto-x-2-2014-t3045492 to trigger the shell command mentioned above for switching the red LED on whenever a new notification appears and off again once it’s gone.
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Yes!! It works. You can even choose which color you want 
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Valid point, I didn’t think about hearing-impaired people. Thanks for adding.
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I would also love to have that feature on my phone, i hope that it will be updatet soon.
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Hi Fairphones,
I just got my FP3 and am also a bit disappointed by the missing LED notification - I rely on it very much! Hope that Fairphone engineers will add the feature pretty soon…
Some say the LED is intrusive, avoiding “digital detox” by nagging the user. The contrary is true for me: If I cannot rely on the phone signalling new messages (which I receive not very often), I need to pick up the phone whenever I did not watch it closely to check if something important arrived. Which is much more distracting and intrusive. So either the phone forces me to always keep an eye on it, or to regularly activate it. Where’s your digital detox here? 
Cheers
Hauke
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The missing LED notification is a deal braker for me too 
. Please add this feature, because the other work, that you do is great!
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While I still strongly agree this should be implemented as soon as possible, I still don’t get what’s the big deal breaker in this, as there are alternatives out there.
How do users of smartphones without such an LED even survive? Well …
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Hi @AnotherElk,
thanks for pointing out the alternatives. Most have disadvantages:
- Screen notifications
Screen eats battery, since the FP3 has an LCD display. With OLED I guess this would be no problem, but LCD needs backlight, backlight eats battery fast. Still, I am really happy that FP3 has LCD! OLED displays get a color tint over time, LCDs not - better for longevity! Also, OLED usually uses pentile matrix - I don’t like that. - Vibration alarm
Makes noise, more difficult to ignore if necessary - Flash LED
Thats an option! Will try that - may be to bright? Will see…
I’d rather that they make the LED working - but on this point we both agree The notification LED is just perfect - low battery usage, noticable, but also ignorable…
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Until Oct 2019, I assumed that this is a standard feature on every smartphone (maybe OLED as an alternative). Well, I learned something since then, another common anti-feature like built in battery or no headphone connector, and “that you have to read the small print very carefully”.
What is most frustrating is that it is there and only “crippled” (now you could play around with root and third party apps). For some time there were smartphones without LED light, but this is a standard feature now I guess?
I used repeated audio alarms for some time (on another smartphone). But this can be super annoying when you’re busy with something else and don’t want to check the phone right now. But I would see a blinking LED without touching the phone.
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For those who need a working solution now, here is my Tasker profile.
https://pastebin.com/raw/6HThWHFN
What’s needed:
- Tasker with provided profile imported (https://tasker.joaoapps.com/download.html)
- Magsik for root access (requires unlocked phone) (How to root the Fairphone 3?)
What it does:
- enables red led when either Conversations, K9, Signal, Threema, Riot or QKSMS show a notification
- disables the led if these notifications go away
Feel free to tune it to your own needs. See it in action in this comment: LED notifications do not work
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I also get people would like to have this feature, but I still have trouble understanding it’s a deal breaker. Of course it depends on your personal reasons for buying the phone, but I could never allow myself to buy an unfair alternative just to have a flashing LED light. ‘Oh, it doesn’t have that? I suppose I’ll have to make do with a brand that exploits its factory workers and encourages consumers to buy a newer model on a yearly basis.’
Do you really have to keep checking your phone for new messages or do you feel like you have to? What will happen if you notice the message half an hour after you received it? It begs the question whether you control your phone or whether it controls you.
On screen notifications: my FP3 does that for a few seconds when a message comes in. It’s easy to miss but it looks very nice. Based on the FP’s battery life, I feel keeping that on won’t affect the batter life all that much, since it’s already so great, I can easily use my phone for 2 full days, so 1 should be possible with screen notifications.
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Maybe not a dealbreaker, but definitely close to a must-have for some. Again, if you’re not able to hear your phone, the LED is incredibly useful and close to indispensable. And if you’re accustomed to using the LED, I can understand that it’s frustrating to no longer have that functionality when the LED’s right there unable to be enabled. Not something to get worked up over, I agree, but a somewhat clueless oversight by FP.
But aside from that, I think people talk about getting an unfair phone over this issue because the back-and forth format of forum discussions tends to get people worked up over their opinions and it’s something of a last ditch threat, like the many threads that start like “I thought this was a FAIRphone but issue X isn’t FAIR to customers so I’m leaving this movement and getting an UNFAIR phone unless I get helped right now”.
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I used a Galaxy S5 for four years. It had LED notifications. I had even assigned different colours to different apps, groupchats, and people. Then I got my Fairphone and I didn’t have LED notifications anymore. I shrugged and moved on with my life. 
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Hm, it is not that easy. I am not a Smartphone junkie, neither using WhatsApp nor Facebook or the like, so I usually only get mails and SMS (yeah, old fashioned SMS…) - and I only get them if something is rather important, like while renovating my home, the carfters needed some urgent decision, hit a problem or so, or more recent, an ill familiy member might need something relatively urgent. LED notification is something of nice-to-have, I agree, but for me it’s really-nice-to-have 
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But if it’s so important it requires your immediate attention, then why aren’t vibrate or sound signals good options? Apparently you’re already in a situation in which you are able to use your phone (I cannot use my phone at work), so I guess it can vibrate or ring too?
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Maybe you cannot understand that there are people with other priorities. A small LED is the most energy saving method to signal something without disturbing other people.
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You don’t have to buy an unfair phone to get missing features back (good luck finding one with removeable battery). There is also Shiftphone, but I haven’t heard from them when I ordered the Fairphone 3.
2 features are missing that I expected to be there, and people tell you “you don’t need that garbage anyway”. Before I buy a Fairphone 4, I can look what the competitor offers.
Keeping an LCD screen on for longer would consume too much power I guess, even if most parts of it are black (that only works on OLED).
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