Looking at all the features that older phones uses to have compared to newer ones, I never hear anyone talk about the removal of the notification LED. I personally really liked that feature, being able to see if I got an email, a text or missed a call without turning on my phone was awesome. My Samsung note 8 had this feature, but to my knowledge, newer phones (in the major companies anyway) have abandoned this feature. Did everyone else unanimously agree they don’t care for this feature?
The notification led is one of the biggest things I miss. I glance at my phone from across the room and based on the color of the led, I knew what notification I had. Now I have to check my phone periodically to see if/what notifications have been received. Particularly annoying when my phone is charging somewhere.
all-knight-party@kbin.run 1 year ago
I think it just got sort of replaced by the "always on display" as Android calls it, where the screen is "off" but still displays the system clock and any notification icons received. For me, it's accomplished the same thing while being more specific than the LED
Magister@lemmy.world 1 year ago
True, OLED have the always on screen, but a lot of phones (mainly low/middle range) don’t have OLED and have no LED notification :-/ I remember I found this very useful on my old zenfone/nokia (my latest cell is OLED)
evatronic@lemm.ee 1 year ago
It’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.
user224@lemmy.sdf.org 1 year ago
I am pretty sure you can exclude permanent notifications.
somedaysoon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
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.
r00ty@kbin.life 1 year 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.
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world 1 year 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 1 year 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