Notification LED

[Guest Disinform]

Hi.

I love my streak, but, coming from a G1, the thing I really miss is the notification LED, letting me know when I have emails and so on. Does anyone know if there is an app or some way to get the home button light to function in a similar manner?

Obviously they're only white LEDs, so you wouldn't be able to get different colours, but some kind of notification would be nice.

[Guest nascar24usa]

Hi.

I love my streak, but, coming from a G1, the thing I really miss is the notification LED, letting me know when I have emails and so on. Does anyone know if there is an app or some way to get the home button light to function in a similar manner?

Obviously they're only white LEDs, so you wouldn't be able to get different colours, but some kind of notification would be nice.

I too would sure like to know when I get an email and more than a one time notification. The problem is I have posted similar questions on other sites and get all but no response. I have no idea why, except, for business it would be great, but it appears most on these sites don't seem to care much about email notifications. That tells me most aren't business people, in the sense of wanting emails the second they are pushed thru, no disrespect meant. For me to be late in responding to customers emails is not good, so a warning every minute or two till I hear it would be great. I hope I am wrong, but getting those kind of answers on these sites are not easy to come by, at least not in the past. I hope more than one responds and proves me wrong.

[Guest mzsigler]

Hmm. Good idea, I know it's possible to control the softkey LED's independent of the screen. If I get some time I'll look around and see what I can find. I also have a Nexus One, so the lack of notification ID is kinda annoying me too.

[Guest wyxwyx]

Hmm. Good idea, I know it's possible to control the softkey LED's independent of the screen. If I get some time I'll look around and see what I can find. I also have a Nexus One, so the lack of notification ID is kinda annoying me too.

The GalaxyS has a 3rd party application that shows a blinking point on the amoled screen. (maybe noled.apk)

Does it work on the Streak?

Please anybody test it....

[Guest bostonguy]

The GalaxyS has a 3rd party application that shows a blinking point on the amoled screen. (maybe noled.apk)

Does it work on the Streak?

Please anybody test it....

It might work on the Streak, but would use much more battery to do the same thing it does very efficiently on the Samsung, because of the AMOLED screens the Samsung's have. AMOLED screens don't use any (or very little) power to show black, but LCD screens use the same power to show any colors.

So a Samsung (AMOLED) can show an all black screen, with a few pixels "blinking" red and use only a few pixels worth of juice. Streak's (LCD) would be powering up the whole screen to blink those few red pixels.

[Guest Disinform]

It might work on the Streak, but would use much more battery to do the same thing it does very efficiently on the Samsung, because of the AMOLED screens the Samsung's have. AMOLED screens don't use any (or very little) power to show black, but LCD screens use the same power to show any colors.

So a Samsung (AMOLED) can show an all black screen, with a few pixels "blinking" red and use only a few pixels worth of juice. Streak's (LCD) would be powering up the whole screen to blink those few red pixels.

Excellent point. Also the app doesn't seem to work on the Streak - I assume it may be something to do with AMOLED trickery.

Surely there must be some software interface with the LEDs, they can't only be used to show the phone is booting?

[Guest MikeF74]

I think this is another case of needing Dell to release their source in accordance with the GPL.

[Guest Stephen Hyde]

ok folks, found you all some info for this:

check out /sys/class/leds/button-backlight

the files led0 led1 led2 are the individual brightness values for each of the capacitve buttons. all that we need is to code a system to use them for notifications

led0 : back button

led1 : menu button

led2 : home button

Edited August 28, 2010 by Stephen Hyde

[Guest Meltus]

ok folks, found you all some info for this:

check out /sys/class/leds/button-backlight

the files led0 led1 led2 are the individual brightness values for each of the capacitve buttons. all that we need is to code a system to use them for notifications

led0 : back button

led1 : menu button

led2 : home button

I've been digging through these files for a few days and had some success, you beat me to posting it :huh:

Coding them to use as a notification should be fairly easy, you can either dim them or turn them all on/off individually or together.

The only problem is, they're linked to the screen, so when the screen times out, echo'ing doesn't work and they don't seem to react so the screen would need to come on too. I'll keep digging and see what i can come up with, i'm just wondering whether an app running in the background would be able to control them better.

I'll let you guys know what i can find.

[Guest Meltus]

EDIT: Requires Root. Sorry, forgot to add that :huh:

Ok, here we go.

LEDBlinker.apk (not really named well, as nothing blinks yet. This could easily be done with a timer though)

THIS DOES NOT HANDLE NOTIFICATIONS!!

This is simply a proof-of-concept app that lets you control the 3 soft key LEDs separately. You can turn them on or off and dim them (dim is currently set to "100", the range is "0" to "255")

The stupid "led flashing" issue with the new boot.img overrides the app which is VERY annoying, but i guess you could use this as a rudimentary fix, making the app set the brightness every so many minutes or whatever.

I'll see if i can make this intercept notifications or something tomorrow.

RENAME THE ATTACHED .ZIP TO AN .APK TO USE.

LedBlinker.zip

Edited August 28, 2010 by Meltus

[Guest wyxwyx]

This is simply a proof-of-concept app that lets you control the 3 soft key LEDs separately. You can turn them on or off and dim them (dim is currently set to

And what had happened when the screen was off? Is this application working in behind also? If you have missed notification (screen off), should have been working.

Edited August 28, 2010 by wyxwyx

[Guest Stephen Hyde]

try echoing to those files then chmoding it to 444 see if they remain on after screen goes off

[Guest Shauneh]

I might be mistaken but chmodding only effects filepermissions :huh:

Thanks

--

Shauneh

Sent from Streak

[Guest JFDee]

I might be mistaken but chmodding only effects filepermissions :huh:

I think the idea is to switch them on and then prevent anyone else from writing to the file, thus leaving the LED state unchanged.

But I suspect this will not work; when the screen is switching off there is some powersave setting involved which is probably done on a higher (hardware) level. As long as we don't know where that setting is, separate LED control will be not possible.

[Guest Stephen Hyde]

i had one of the leds stay on after screen went off but i had to echo it just as screen went to sleep so i suspect its just something in android doing it

[Guest Meltus]

The LEDs stay in what ever state you set them when the screen times out, they don't time out with the screen.

The problem is, that you cannot control them once the screen times out so they get stuck in whatever state you set them.

EDIT: Although, the LED flashing problem still occurs when the screen times out so there must be a way.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Meltus

[Guest Shauneh]

Maybe bring the screen on, have a timer, switch LED(s) on, kill screen?

Just a helpful thought.

--

Shauneh

[Guest Meltus]

Maybe bring the screen on, have a timer, switch LED(s) on, kill screen?

Just a helpful thought.

--

Shauneh

Good idea. I'm not sure how to even turn the screen on in code because i think the screen acts similar to the leds and once it times out you cannot control it. I'll keep trying though and see what i can come up with.

[Guest Meltus]

Good idea. I'm not sure how to even turn the screen on in code because i think the screen acts similar to the leds and once it times out you cannot control it. I'll keep trying though and see what i can come up with.

Good news! I've made an app that recognises when a text arrives and it flashes the LED! :huh:

The only problem is, the phone needs to unlock for it to work. This isn't such a big problem, but i can't for the life of me figure out how to unlock it with code.

Nothing seems to work ;)

Anyone got any ideas?

[Guest alfonsomm]

Good news! I've made an app that recognises when a text arrives and it flashes the LED! :huh:

The only problem is, the phone needs to unlock for it to work. This isn't such a big problem, but i can't for the life of me figure out how to unlock it with code.

Nothing seems to work ;)

Anyone got any ideas?

any luck Meltus? i would really love to see this

[Guest Meltus]

any luck Meltus? i would really love to see this

Sort of ;)

I've managed to get the phone to unlock but the screen still wont power on.

I've tried WAKE_LOCK (with permissions) but the screen still doesn't respond:

PowerManager pm = (PowerManager) getSystemService(Context.POWER_SERVICE);

PowerManager.WakeLock WL1= pm.newWakeLock(PowerManager.SCREEN_DIM_WAKE_LOCK, "My Tag");

WL1.acquire();

   ...

WL1.release();

I really have absolutely no idea where to go from here. I'll release what i've done so far tomorrow (works pretty nice with the screen turned on :huh:) but if anyone has any idea how to turn on the screen please let me know :(

[Guest alfonsomm]

Sort of ;)

I've managed to get the phone to unlock but the screen still wont power on.

I've tried WAKE_LOCK (with permissions) but the screen still doesn't respond:

PowerManager pm = (PowerManager) getSystemService(Context.POWER_SERVICE);

PowerManager.WakeLock WL1= pm.newWakeLock(PowerManager.SCREEN_DIM_WAKE_LOCK, "My Tag");

WL1.acquire();

   ...

WL1.release();

I really have absolutely no idea where to go from here. I'll release what i've done so far tomorrow (works pretty nice with the screen turned on :huh:) but if anyone has any idea how to turn on the screen please let me know :(

Awesome...ill see if i can fiddle around with it today

[Guest Spike8585]

You guys are awesome.

I am really looking forward to this one.

Next, we need it to display our messages in Morse Code. :huh:

[Guest clickspace]

So when we get a text, the phone must be unlocked and the screen must be on for the LEDs to flash? Im not sure thats a good idea if the phone is in our pockets.

Edited September 2, 2010 by clickspace

[Guest jmhalder]

So when we get a text, the phone must be unlocked and the screen must be on for the LEDs to flash? Im not sure thats a good idea if the phone is in our pockets.

Duh, they're lookin for a solution... pointing out the obvious is appreciated.