That’s not true, it didn’t work that way. You could set it for individual notifications and even have custom colors. I would have it orange for K9 emails and Green for text messages and red for a missed call… it was extremely versatile and much better than screen always on which I always disable on my phones.
Comment on Are phone notification LEDs still a thing?
evatronic@lemm.ee 8 months agoIt’s also worth noting that most phones these days always have at least one item in the “notification” bar at some point. Like, right now I’ve got two apps taking up a slot, and Google’s weather thing up there, and that’s a normal day.
The LED would always be on.
somedaysoon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
r00ty@kbin.life 8 months ago
Nah. They used to flash different colours for different events, and you could filter what created an LED event. Even with the OLED screen, leaving the notification/clock on all day drains the battery noticeably more than having it disabled. I find it better to only have that on at night when charging. Not to mention you didn't need to look at the screen. You'd see the flashing light and know there's something to check.
But, what they COULD do is simulate a series of LEDs properly with OLED. That should in theory take a similar amount of power (for the screen at least) as a real LED. But, I suspect driving part of the screen would require the screen controller active. I suspect the older phones with LEDs had some separate low power driver storing the most recent events from when the phone last "woke up" using minimal power for the flashing LEDs.
So, in all it genuinely is a missing feature that has no equivalent in modern phones.
Balex@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Maybe older models were a lot less efficient with always on display, but I just checked for my Pixel 8 Pro and the ambient display was <1% battery usage.
r00ty@kbin.life 8 months ago
Don't think an S20+ is that old. I turned it on full time just after I posted that last comment, just on the edge of the screen. Low brightness. 3.5% of the battery use in 5 hours.
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Those would never show up in the notification LEDs. Only temporary stuff like you’ve gotten a text would.
all-knight-party@kbin.run 8 months ago
I use third party apps to disable permanent icons, for me it's the alarm. I always have repeating alarms on, so the icon is pointless, I disabled it in the app settings. I'd like for a first party way to do that, but oh well
user224@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
I am pretty sure you can exclude permanent notifications.