Due to the lack of a dedicated LED for notification use, I was hoping it would be possible to use the LEDs behind the capacitive buttons for this function. I am aware of apps that somewhat satisfy this such as NoLED and FlashNotify, but either of these seem to to effect battery life. I've seen other threads for different phones where they have succesfully done this:
For LG G2x:
capacitive touch LED notification
For GS2 I9100:
[Q] Capacitive Touch LED Notification Blinking/Flashing
[MOD] BackLight Notifications for Galaxy SII - GT9100 and GTI9100M Bell's
With it being available for the international Galaxy S II, how hard would it be to get it to work for our phones? And who can we go to to get something like this b/c this is definitely something I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks for.
alphanumer1c said:
Due to the lack of a dedicated LED for notification use, I was hoping it would be possible to use the LEDs behind the capacitive buttons for this function. I am aware of apps that somewhat satisfy this such as NoLED and FlashNotify, but either of these seem to to effect battery life. I've seen other threads for different phones where they have succesfully done this:
For LG G2x:
capacitive touch LED notification
For GS2 I9100:
[Q] Capacitive Touch LED Notification Blinking/Flashing
[MOD] BackLight Notifications for Galaxy SII - GT9100 and GTI9100M Bell's
With it being available for the international Galaxy S II, how hard would it be to get it to work for our phones? And who can we go to to get something like this b/c this is definitely something I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks for.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BLN relies on kernel support for it. As far as I know, nobody has been able to implement it yet.
Its called BLN and its still in the early stages of development right now. There was talk that it would be close to impossible so its good that they may be getting at least somewhere.
Simba501 said:
BLN relies on kernel support for it. As far as I know, nobody has been able to implement it yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Entropy was working on it in his kernel, said there were some problems though. He pushed it to a long term modification. Doubt we will see it for a bit
The first thread you linked was a Q thread with no answers, other than NoLED.
NoLED should work, but it'll eat your battery like crazy.
The second thread covers BLN, which requires a kernel mod. When I tried to implement it on our devices, an active LED notification caused a permanent wakelock until the notification was cleared.
As an example of what this means:
Usually if leaving my phone overnight, it drops a little less than 1% per hour.
When I tried BLN and a notification came in 2 hours after I went to bed, I woke up to the battery at 56%. (this was after around 6 more hours).
We have a different touchkey driver than the I9000. It appears we have one similar to the Infuse, it means that so far, unless someone managed to come up with a vastly improved BLN implementation, we have two choices:
1) Crashing all the time but good battery life (Infuse)
2) Stable with no crashes, but active notifications gulp battery (I777, probably I9100 too)
Entropy512 said:
Usually if leaving my phone overnight, it drops a little less than 10% per hour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think (hope?) you meant 1% per hour, right?
jsmith8858 said:
I think (hope?) you meant 1% per hour, right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooops, good catch - yeah, 1% per hour.
Related
And why is it such a big deal? People seem to get up in arms over who to blame for not having it enabled, And I have no idea what it is.
So what is it?
back light notifications.
some android phones have an led that blinks when you get a notification.... so there's a mod which enables the four buttons on our device to light up instead.
Back Light Notification
it lights up your bottom keys upon notifications (sms, email, talk, etc)
My captivate was rooted and custom rom with bln. I have to say That is one thing i really miss!!!! I wish there was a way i could get it on a stock phone or an app of some sort. I love my new gs2 but i miss not having bln!!!
I guess it might be cool, as its low-profile dim lights instead of turning the whole display on or vibrating loudly on the table..
Still, with the fuss some people make about whose fault it is (kernal/rom) that it wont work, you'd expect it would be more.
anyways, thanks!
Very low profile, can have phone on silent, screen off, and seeyou have a message. I wish it was a stock feature!! Should be a must!
Stock GSII patiently awaiting Ics or CM9.
Im running the UCKj4 leak ROM and it has BLN enabled.... I've been using for a couple days. I certainly like the low profile alert and for the most part I haven't noticed any difference with battery life.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1353513
You won't notice any battery life. The LED are very battery efficient. Killing me not having bln.
Stock GSII patiently awaiting Ics or CM9.
tspx23 said:
back light notifications.
some android phones have an led that blinks when you get a notification.... so there's a mod which enables the four buttons on our device to light up instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this on my Sony X10 and it was very handy. In fact the LED would even blink different colors depending on the type of notification.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
harleydad82 said:
You won't notice any battery life. The LED are very battery efficient. Killing me not having bln.
Stock GSII patiently awaiting Ics or CM9.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what Entropy posted, it's not the LED's that kills the battery, it's the open wakelock.
To the OP:
If you've ever had BLN, you'd love it as much as everyone else does/did. It's nice to just look at the black screen and KNOW if you have a message waiting. It also saves on your battery since you won't be waking up your device constantly to see if you've missed something.
axis01 said:
From what Entropy posted, it's not the LED's that kills the battery, it's the open wakelock.
To the OP:
If you've ever had BLN, you'd love it as much as everyone else does/did. It's nice to just look at the black screen and KNOW if you have a message waiting. It also saves on your battery since you won't be waking up your device constantly to see if you've missed something.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct - On the I9000/Captivate, it was possible to have a stable BLN implementation without holding long wakelocks.
On the Infuse, no one ever produced a stable BLN implementation, so all kernel developers eventually gave up and ripped it out.
On the I9100, I have only seen one BLN implementation and it holds wakelocks whenever the light is active, preventing deep sleep. This is probably how the patch avoids the stability problems the Infuse had (which has an almost identical touchkey driver). Given my history with BLN - I'm not messing with it, if someone else produces a patch that is stable AND doesn't hold wakelocks I'll pull it in, but I just don't have the time or inclination for it. (I don't use BLN myself.)
As to ROM vs. kernel - it's both. The kernel needs support, the ROM needs an updated liblights.
Well see how my battery goes on this rom, but loving BLN. Cannot function without it! Had it on my captivate, had an equivalent on the HTC vivd, and now I have BLN on my SGSII!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1353513
I too cannot seem to live without bln and am glad CM7 has it working. For me to get around the wake lock issue CM7 has a timeoit limit you can set. I think I set mine for 30 minutes. So if I am a sleep and get a text or whatever it will timeout while I am still a sleep so it doesn't drain over the course of a whole night. It is listed under device settings, notification timeout.
There is also a backlight timeout but that controls how long the 4 soft button lights stay on just while your using it, I have it set to ALWAYS which keeps them on while I have the screen on. Once it is turned off they go off. But the time limits for it can be adjusted also.
Sent From My KickAss ATT SGS2 SPORTING CM7
i too would want to use BLN but i will wait for the approval from Entropy
polobreaka said:
i too would want to use BLN but i will wait for the approval from Entropy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here.
It's in my kernel, you're welcome to use it, just be warned that an active notification will cause your battery drain to hit 4-5%/hour.
Entropy512 said:
It's in my kernel, you're welcome to use it, just be warned that an active notification will cause your battery drain to hit 4-5%/hour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ive been using you kernel..but i dont see it anywhere. the rom needs to support it first right? im on unnamed, so i dont think its enabled.
polobreaka said:
ive been using you kernel..but i dont see it anywhere. the rom needs to support it first right? im on unnamed, so i dont think its enabled.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It now works on ICScreweD.
For me, BLN is a must, as I often just have my phone on silent, laying on my desk and I don't feel like waking it up every time I come back in to the room. For this reason, along with tethering being enabled, i use the 2.3.6 leaked v3 rom by shoman. Soo niice!
So I pre-ordered last night at my local at&t store. I am excited as before I went to my at&t store I passed by best buy to hold the dummy model they have. Its big but I was still able to thumb the other side of the device with one hand. I also played with the samsung player which has a 5" screen and runs android but I guess thats just suppose to be an mp3 player, either way it looked similar to the note and it looked great. I can imagine how good the note's display will look.
The only thing right now that is bugging me a little is getting by with no led notification. Can you guys suggest how to get over that little led light that will no longer be on the note? Or how you guys with devices with no led lights are coping?
there is a app that you can get and its free called no led.. My wife had the same issue as she was used to a led light and when she got her samsung she missed it.. works well
But that requires your screen to turn on so basically killing the battery right? I know some samsung devices have that bln mod but not sure how well that works and if its even compatible with the lte note. Any led camera flash apps maybe?
no it puts a small icon that lights up on your screen and bounces around. the rest of your screen is dark.
Camera flash? For notifications? Seems to me that would kill that battery way faster than 64 pixels floating around the screen . . .
SysAdmNj said:
But that requires your screen to turn on so basically killing the battery right? I know some samsung devices have that bln mod but not sure how well that works and if its even compatible with the lte note. Any led camera flash apps maybe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What does it really mean to "turn on the screen" for the Samsung AMOLED displays? LCD-based displays need a backlight, even when displaying a single pixel. But turning on just a few LED pixels on a Samsung AMOLED display is probably a very low power operation, since only active pixels should need to be powered, and since there is no backlight.
I haven't had an LED notification for years. And I am thankful that I don't. I remember on BB when I had the LED notification, I was constantly looking at my phone to see if the light was beeping. Without it, I'm so much less obsessed with seeing if I have that stupid blinking light.
@bkeaver - I thought it required the screen to be on
@LiquidArrogance - I've seen the iphone do it like that with a case
@vaxheadroom - Then I definitely am not sure the difference between lcd and AMOLED displays
@kiltedthrower - I'm still obsessed no thanks to the blackberry days
here is a link to the app.... should give you a idea of how it works and what it looks like
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.led.notify
SysAdmNj said:
But that requires your screen to turn on so basically killing the battery right? I know some samsung devices have that bln mod but not sure how well that works and if its even compatible with the lte note. Any led camera flash apps maybe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Once a kernel is developed that supports bln which I imagine will be fairly quickly, it will be available. And it works very well, I use it on my captivate all you have to do is install the bln supporting kernel, download the app, set up what apps turn on the leds and you're done.
emcnelly said:
Once a kernel is developed that supports bln which I imagine will be fairly quickly, it will be available. And it works very well, I use it on my captivate all you have to do is install the bln supporting kernel, download the app, set up what apps turn on the leds and you're done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it a strain on battery at all? Or does noled work better in regards to battery life?
I am absolutely satisfied with this phone . BUT i have one problem . When i push the power buton it takes between 0.2 and 2 secound to appear the lock screen. What should i do to make it faster? Becouse the waiting is disappointing with this hardware ....
if u want instant on u will need all of you 4 cores to stay awaken at full speed at all time u still want it ?
it goes to power saving mode thats why it needs 2 secs to be awaken
bobekk said:
if u want instant on u will need all of you 4 cores to stay awaken at full speed at all time u still want it ?
it goes to power saving mode thats why it needs 2 secs to be awaken
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's right , but my old desire hd had about 0.5 sec to wake up . This is why i asked it .
It's a battery saving feature. You can turn off S-Voice on lockscreen from the S-Voice settings, or just completely disable the whole application like I did, and this speeds up the wake process a little bit.
bortak said:
It's a battery saving feature. You can turn off S-Voice on lockscreen from the S-Voice settings, or just completely disable the whole application like I did, and this speeds up the wake process a little bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes i have already done that . But this lag is really annoying . Mainly because its not always the same ammount . Sometimes it takes 3 secounds but sometimes its a half secound. I really dont know what to do...
If your USB cable is connected, it wakes up instantly, if not, there is a lag. This is a feature (!) of Samsung phones. We discussed it deeply on this thread in SGS2 forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1136223
Basically, it's epic failure by Samsung and there's no solution.
It can't be explained by saying phone needs to sleep, because HTC, LG, Sony, Motorola phones sleep too and none of them needs so long to wake up.
oh well in terms of when your actually using the phone, nothing compares to the speed and fluidity of Sammy phones. Isnt really an issue that it takes a second longer to wake up
aydc said:
If your USB cable is connected, it wakes up instantly, if not, there is a lag. This is a feature (!) of Samsung phones. We discussed it deeply on this thread in SGS2 forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1136223
Basically, it's epic failure by Samsung and there's no solution.
It can't be explained by saying phone needs to sleep, because HTC, LG, Sony, Motorola phones sleep too and none of them needs so long to wake up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, but they also dont tend to have as good standby battery life on HTC, LG, Sony or Moto phones.
I'm not defending them completely but this is a design decision rather than a bug. That said, on the Galaxy Note it has been almost completely alleviated since the ICS upgrade.
moqs said:
I am absolutely satisfied with this phone . BUT i have one problem . When i push the power buton it takes between 0.2 and 2 secound to appear the lock screen. What should i do to make it faster? Becouse the waiting is disappointing with this hardware ....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed it only recently after screwing around @ 1.8ghz that suddenly the phone is taking sometimes millisec or sometimes even 3 secs to go to lock screen and also ripple is slowed if immediately try to unlock. I thought maybe i messed up some part of hardware by o/cing it too much. Even my old LG O3D takes just a sec. ANyway glad to know it's a common thing and not my phone being fkd up.
I can't judge, I take several minutes to wake up.
Still waiting...
Sent from my GT-I9000 using xda premium
Thank you for all the answers!
Ive noticed this too, its frustrating, makes the phone feel laggy.
My S2 was running CM9 and that was sharp as hell, no messing about, is this something that will in time be fixed with a custom rom?
I'm sooo close to caving in and replacing my GS2 for a 3, one of my very few pet peeves with the SG2 is how slow it wakes..
Seeing a lot of you guys came from GS2s I figured who best could answer my question of does the GS3 snap to life faster then your old GS2?
Also as long a you're answering what is the feature that most impressed you coming from the GS2? TIA.
Sent from my GSII w/ICS SHOstock2
Captpt said:
I'm sooo close to caving in and replacing my GS2 for a 3, one of my very few pet peeves with the SG2 is how slow it wakes..
Seeing a lot of you guys came from GS2s I figured who best could answer my question of does the GS3 snap to life faster then your old GS2?
Also as long a you're answering what is the feature that most impressed you coming from the GS2? TIA.
Sent from my GSII w/ICS SHOstock2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly, I find it does wake quicker than my i9100 did. Hopefully more will confirm as it may be subjective, but it tends to wake in under a second when hitting power button on mine anyway where my SGS2 was like 2 or 3 seconds when waking.
For me, you can really tell the higher resolution screen which was a plus for me. The LED light is incredible useful (no more waking phone to see if I have any messages). And the third was definitely LTE which is so much faster in my area than HSPA which seems to be really congested. Those three things made it worth the upgrade alone. All in all, maybe not a HUGE upgrade but a decent enough upgrade for myself
blue265 said:
Honestly, I find it does wake quicker than my i9100 did. Hopefully more will confirm as it may be subjective, but it tends to wake in under a second when hitting power button on mine anyway where my SGS2 was like 2 or 3 seconds when waking.
For me, you can really tell the higher resolution screen which was a plus for me. The LED light is incredible useful (no more waking phone to see if I have any messages). And the third was definitely LTE which is so much faster in my area than HSPA which seems to be really congested. Those three things made it worth the upgrade alone. All in all, maybe not a HUGE upgrade but a decent enough upgrade for myself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice... I know that screen is very nice.. I haven't seen anyone posting anything about the GS3 display staying on while your eyes are still on it, has this feature been included with the AT&T GS3???
Captpt said:
Nice... I know that screen is very nice.. I haven't seen anyone posting anything about the GS3 display staying on while your eyes are still on it, has this feature been included with the AT&T GS3???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it actually not your eyes it's detecting, but face. Love this feature, very useful when reading something or playing puzzle games.
The way it's working, it turns front camera on a few seconds before it dims the screen, if it detect a face, nothing happens, if no face near, it dims the screen for 5 seconds, then it checks again for a face, if found it, it turns up the brightness and resets screen timeout, otherwise shuts it off.
Wakeup time has a slight lag, but it's not annoying. However if you are using something like SetCPU and set profile to turn down CPU clock to lowest possible when screen is off, then it might not response to touches after wakeup for a few seconds.
[email protected] said:
Yes, it actually not your eyes it's detecting, but face. Love this feature, very useful when reading something or playing puzzle games.
The way it's working, it turns front camera on a few seconds before it dims the screen, if it detect a face, nothing happens, if no face near, it dims the screen for 5 seconds, then it checks again for a face, if found it, it turns up the brightness and resets screen timeout, otherwise shuts it off.
Wakeup time has a slight lag, but it's not annoying. However if you are using something like SetCPU and set profile to turn down CPU clock to lowest possible when screen is off, then it might not response to touches after wakeup for a few seconds.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks blue265 and [email protected]
Great to hear.. I just found there is a patch to let the hard home button wake the phone which is very cool...
Having a hard time justyifying replacing my GS2 after only 8 months but damn this GS3 looks sweet....
Not to mention I'm seriously thinking of putting my iPad (Gen 1) on eBay along with my GS2, the new Nexus 7 tablet for $199 looks just as inviting as the GS3
Captpt said:
I just found there is a patch to let the hard home button wake the phone which is very cool...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just for the record, at least AT&T version has this feature by default, no need any patches.
Captpt said:
I just found there is a patch to let the hard home button wake the phone which is very cool...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is enabled by default on the Verizon version as well, no patch needed.
Awesome, it'd be getting the AT&T version... Now I see the GS3 Red pre-orders have started and will be available on the 29th, my resistance it's getting weaker by the minute
How have the ROMs been so far for the GS3 (the AT&T versions)?
Sent from my GSII w/ICS SHOstock2
on old gingerbread phones without led notifications there used to be a kernel maybe Franco don't recall that had the ability to flash the capacitive buttons. That would be key on our G anyone know if its possible?
from my Nexus7 while my Optimus rests
Bln support. Built into kernel. Then the app will work
the best phone ever
Yes that was it I remember the app and the kernel dependency now if someone would do this lol
from my Nexus7 while my Optimus rests
Crazy enough there is an app that can do it. It's working on mine. You wouldn't expect it to work though but it does. The app if Light Flow. You have to enable the app to control the buttons light. It does work but seems to cause a full wakelock.
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
AndreaCristiano said:
on old gingerbread phones without led notifications there used to be a kernel maybe Franco don't recall that had the ability to flash the capacitive buttons. That would be key on our G anyone know if its possible?
from my Nexus7 while my Optimus rests
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my understanding that only Samsung phones can use bln. But on another note why would you want that when we have a very bright led on the power button?
Edit: while that would look clean with the front buttons for notification that would give some drain battery drain not worth it to me since we already have a led light for notification. While wouldn't be my first choice for the location, they should have done it like the sprint model.
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
903tex said:
From my understanding that only Samsung phones can use bln. But on another note why would you want that when we have a very bright led on the power button?
Edit: while that would look clean with the front buttons for notification that would give some drain battery drain not worth it to me since we already have a led light for notification. While wouldn't be my first choice for the location, they should have done it like the sprint model.
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aside from the side location, the other issues with that notification light are 1) the fact that it only blinks ever 30 seconds or so, with no option to change the frequency, and 2) instead of an RGB LED, apparently LG only put a red one in, thus making it impossible to differentiate between different notifications.
If frequency can be fixed, I'd be happy. Otherwise, getting the capacitive buttons to each indicate a certain notification seems like a great alternative.
903tex said:
From my understanding that only Samsung phones can use bln. But on another note why would you want that when we have a very bright led on the power button?
Edit: while that would look clean with the front buttons for notification that would give some drain battery drain not worth it to me since we already have a led light for notification. While wouldn't be my first choice for the location, they should have done it like the sprint model.
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There would be so little battery drain you would never notice. Also, if you turn off the red led and only use the front capacitive leds the "drain" would be equaled out. I used BLN before and it is amazing. Would love to see it on the LGOG.
Digil said:
Aside from the side location, the other issues with that notification light are 1) the fact that it only blinks ever 30 seconds or so, with no option to change the frequency, and 2) instead of an RGB LED, apparently LG only put a red one in, thus making it impossible to differentiate between different notifications.
If frequency can be fixed, I'd be happy. Otherwise, getting the capacitive buttons to each indicate a certain notification seems like a great alternative.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I notice it blink every 5-6 seconds for a minute or so. But in a dark or lit room I can see it just fine. Only thing I don't like that it on the side should have been on the front like the sprint model. And still don't see why they made the phone different anyway. Just glad the att model has the sd card slot
Sent from my LG-E970 using xda premium
Joecascio2000 said:
There would be so little battery drain you would never notice. Also, if you turn off the red led and only use the front capacitive leds the "drain" would be equaled out. I used BLN before and it is amazing. Would love to see it on the LGOG.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agreed 100% it was a great tool and would be awesome here on our G