Help LED Status Light

[scary alien]

All,

I stumbled across this thread just now and it hit me that I might be able to do some of the things that are discussed in here (if anyone is still interested...). Apologies for necro-posting .

I'm the author of BattMonX (free in the Market, btw) that I originally wrote for the Droid X since the LED indicator does not turn on when the battery is being charged like my HTC Droid Eris does/did.

I've subsequently learned that my app works on the original Droid and the Droid 2 Global (haven't heard directly about the Droid 2, but I suspect it'll work just fine on it too). [I've also heard from a lot of folks that want my app to work on their phones that don't even have an LED indicator, lol ].

Anyway, I'm about to release a newer (1.8) version that has quite a few new features from the 1.7 version. Most notably, if you have a rooted phone, I can turn the LED on when the screen is on. I've also include an LED color tester that you can play with. I hope to publish the updated 1.8 version yet today.

I've done a ton of testing and research with the battery state files and the LED notification API and manipulation of the LED notification brightness files while developing this app.

Anyway, if you are still interested in new/other features or ways that I could alter / upgrade / re-purpose or re-write my app, let me know in this thread or shoot me an email at scary.alien@gmail.com, I'd be happy to hear from you.

Cheers!

 

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

I'm going to look for your app right now.

 

[scary alien]

I'm going to look for your app right now.

Hope you enjoy it! My son has an un-rooted Droid 2 Global and it works great on his (I won't let him root because I need a Droid-class phone to test out non-rooty things on ).

If you are rooted, you should be able to utilize the (fairly) new LED on when screen is on feature (sorry, can't make it blink in this mode since I write to the LED brightness files directly--still working on that feature).

Cheers!

 

[johnlgalt]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread (and, no, I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being Serious) - at the time I was gung ho about figuring this out - but I am a master's student in Biotechnology also finishing my second bachelor's in mathematics - I learned really really quickly that I do not have the time to devote to learning this as much as I want to.

I'll give it a shot tonight. Or else this weekend.

 

[scary alien]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread (and, no, I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being Serious) - at the time I was gung ho about figuring this out - but I am a master's student in Biotechnology also finishing my second bachelor's in mathematics - I learned really really quickly that I do not have the time to devote to learning this as much as I want to.

I'll give it a shot tonight. Or else this weekend.

John,

No worries...

I've had a few email replies regarding this thread and my BattMonX app. I still am interested in possibly expanding my app or creating a new one.

However, one very interesting email conversation I am in the midst of brought to light an app that everyone might be interested in called "LED me know BETA" (LED me know BETA - xda-developers [free in the Market, by the way]. This app was/is written by pow4p0ty over at XDA and might work for some of you folks. Credit to "Riley" for bring this to my attention (and now, to yours ).

This app does seem to require that your phone be rooted (it asked for root permissions right out of the gate). I would like to develop something that (hopefully) does not depend on root.

Hope this is useful information for everyone. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers!

 

[johnlgalt]

Thanks for the info - however, I have a concern (and am basically asking for your thoughts, ideas, and input, not to develop the a-p for myself, as I have absolutely no time this semester, but because I am curious...)

As I mentioned early on in the discussion, I can see no way to alter the LED notifications of system-resident apps without root access. That would be the biggest issue. Phone, stock SMS, and GMail are all stock apps on stock phones - thus, altering *their* notifications will require root access. Plus, while the LED can be called (for lack of a better word) from non-system level processes, my guess here is that intercepting calls from system-resident apps would be akin to intercepting system-level processes, right?

Or am I wrong? Looking at what your app can do, I'm guessing that I'm wrong lol...but it makes no sense to me.

 

[scary alien]

Thanks for the info - however, I have a concern (and am basically asking for your thoughts, ideas, and input, not to develop the a-p for myself, as I have absolutely no time this semester, but because I am curious...)

As I mentioned early on in the discussion, I can see no way to alter the LED notifications of system-resident apps without root access. That would be the biggest issue. Phone, stock SMS, and GMail are all stock apps on stock phones - thus, altering *their* notifications will require root access. Plus, while the LED can be called (for lack of a better word) from non-system level processes, my guess here is that intercepting calls from system-resident apps would be akin to intercepting system-level processes, right?

Or am I wrong? Looking at what your app can do, I'm guessing that I'm wrong lol...but it makes no sense to me.

Still trying to decipher a lot of this myself . Like I mentioned before, I had never really considered re-purposing my app from a battery state monitor to a general notification app. My app currently steps-aside when it sees an SMS text notification come in, but I am monitoring for these notifications purely to not interfere with them. The plethora of other apps (Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, telephony/missed-calls, etc., etc.) that also create their own notifications would have to have two features (in my mind, at least) that would allow a truly general purpose notification monitor to be written:

1. A way to turn off their notifications

2. A way to monitor for their notifications

SMS texts, and missed-calls are easy (I already know how to do these and do not require root). Gmail notification method is also known (non-root, open source is already available).

I have only done cursory investigation into what/how other apps do "their thing", if you will (but I don't know/think there's any obligation for an app to allow its notifications to be easily disabled (although I'm sure most have this feature) or, more importantly, an easy (or public) method for monitoring for their notifications.

Making the phone vibrate, turning on the LEDs, or keyboard/keys backlights, etc. is pretty straightforward (non-root API available for the LEDs at least, root strategy possible for direct manipulation).

My biggest worry would be finding a non-root solution since, in reality, rooted phones/users are still a very small (but awesome ) population compared to the non-rooted ones.

Hope that helps!

Cheers!

 

[johnlgalt]

I stand corrected, then. That means that my original theories were not true after all.

I can see how you'd need both of those provisions for 3rd party apps - does that mean that the stock apps already have said provisions made?

 

[scary alien]

I stand corrected, then. That means that my original theories were not true after all.

I can see how you'd need both of those provisions for 3rd party apps - does that mean that the stock apps already have said provisions made?

Well, I'm speaking just from what I know at the moment...still digging and researching this (tonight, I've downloaded and started searching through the Droid X source to look for more clues and information about the notification API--there's some weirdness there that many users of my app have reported and that I've seen first-hand (i.e., various combinations of amber/green LEDs don't react the same way that the red/green/blue LED for the X does (possibly an HTC vs. Moto vendor issue)).

I just know that the battery monitoring in and of itself took quite a while to screw together into a coherent app (and I've still got some things to smooth out--lots on non-Droid X users want the app to work on their phones too and I'm trying to accommodate them). Monitor for the SMS notifications was sort of a byproduct for me since I do get texts but I've got pretty-much all other notifications turned off (battery saving strategy -- i.e., I don't let my apps auto-sync, I trigger them when I want to) and I haven't used Facebook and only recently installed a Twitter client (only to monitor for Google I/O registration ). I also have done some missed-call app development and know what it would take to monitor for those events. Also, Gmail should be relatively straightforward like I indicated (I've downloaded the source already) and there is a way to turn off the notifications in this client.

The other ones I really can't speak to as yet since I haven't fully researched them, but if there are standard broadcast intents or APIs that they use, they too should easily be assimilated .

Thanks for piquing my interest...I'm not sure that I would hold out hope for an all-in-one solution due to the fragmentation issues we've already discussed. Also, if you read through the "LED me know" author's thread over on XDA, you'll see some of the issues and requests he has encountered.

Cheers!

 

[johnlgalt]

Yeah, I installed his app but I don't want to play around until I know for sure a couple of things about some of the settings. Plus, I'm flashing CM7 nightlies every other night, so I have to make absolutely sure that it is 100% GB compatible before I start firing it up and then ohsing my phone lol.

Thanks for all the good info - I realize now that I need to take a closer look at the APIs and such. I would have thought that notifications from system apps would not be interceptable - obviously I am wrong about that. And that means that there may br other APIs for intercepting other data transfer / exchange from system apps that may also be interceptable without needing root....