question about notifications

[heycal]

I'm in the market for a new phone, and very much want one that has a notification light. One where I can make the light glow steadily until I clear/check the message, and that I can see from across the room or on a table as I walk past it.

Is it true that that the Maxx's active display thing would not allow me to do such things?

 

[Outatime]

The Maxx's Active Notification will "breath" (slowly comes on, slowly fades out) every few seconds when you have a message/email/whatever. This happens right on the screen, so there's no dedicated light. Additionally, if you touch the phone or wave your hand over the proximity sensor, it will cause it to display your notifications.

If you're in the market for a new device though I would consider holding off for just a little bit. The new Moto X looks like it's going to be great, and from what I'm to understand there will a Verizon-only Droid Maxx version that should be pretty sweet.

 

[doogald]

If you want a notification light that you can see across the room, the Moto X and the Droid Maxx are not for you.

 

[Thom]

When you see it you can ask touchless control to read the notifications to you.

Yes I do know how stupid it sounds ... you have to try touchless control for an hour or two and after that you will never have a phone that doesn't have it.

... Thom

 

[heycal]

Thanks, guys. Some of these features sound nice, but I'd love a phone that will emit a steady, constant light that will tell me at a glance from a few feet away if there's a message or not without having to touch (or talk to) the phone. Sounds like the Maxx can't be set up to do that.

 

[heycal]

If you want a notification light that you can see across the room, the Moto X and the Droid Maxx are not for you.

Basically any phone that boasts of 'active display' will not do what I want it to do, right?

 

[Thom]

I just created a little Tasker profile that is kicked off by the time. It could be kicked off by receiving an SMS message.

Profile: tlaTest
Time: From 22:10
Enter: Anon
A1: Notify LED [ Title:Test It Out Text: Icon:null Number:0 Colour:Red Rate:500 Priority:3 ]

When it kicks off the logo associated with the Notify LED command is displayed and slowly pulses.

It would be soft as apposed to bright but other than that it meets your criteria.

... Thom

 

[doogald]

Basically any phone that boasts of 'active display' will not do what I want it to do, right?

Yes, that's right. FWIW, the Droid Mini does have a notification light, so that device would work.

As others have said, though, it's thought that a new line of Droids may be coming soon, so if you can wait and it turns out that there is a replacement for the Mini that continues to have a notification light and the smaller display size interests you, it may pay to wait a bit. I have a strong feeling that any new Droids will continue to use Active Display (now called "Moto Display" on the 2014 Moto X). Otherwise, a Galaxy S5 or Note, HTC One, or LG G3 is probably what you want.

 

[heycal]

I just created a little Tasker profile that is kicked off by the time. It could be kicked off by receiving an SMS message.

Profile: tlaTest
Time: From 22:10
Enter: Anon
A1: Notify LED [ Title:Test It Out Text: Icon:null Number:0 Colour:Red Rate:500 Priority:3 ]

When it kicks off the logo associated with the Notify LED command is displayed and slowly pulses.

It would be soft as apposed to bright but other than that it meets your criteria.

... Thom

Thanks, Thom. I appreciate that. I'm leaning against the Maxx now, but if I change my mind I'll come back to this.

Yes, that's right. FWIW, the Droid Mini does have a notification light, so that device would work.

As others have said, though, it's thought that a new line of Droids may be coming soon, so if you can wait and it turns out that there is a replacement for the Mini that continues to have a notification light and the smaller display size interests you, it may pay to wait a bit. I have a strong feeling that any new Droids will continue to use Active Display (now called "Moto Display" on the 2014 Moto X). Otherwise, a Galaxy S5 or Note, HTC One, or LG G3 is probably what you want.

I actually just waited for the iphone 6 to come out, so I'm not willing to wait for any more phones. It's decision time. I'm deciding between the iphone 6 or a similarly sized non-huge Android. LG G3 is just too big for me. The slightly smaller LG G2 is tempting, but still a little larger than I would like. I came across the MAXX in the store today and liked the size and feel of it, and the battery power, but this notifcation light issue may have just knocked it out of contention.

In a nutshell, the main pros and cons for me in making my decision are:

IPHONE 6:

PROS: I can easily make the text very large on SMS and emails with iphone, which enables me to read texts and emails without reaching for my reading glasses. VERY important to me. I also like the look and feel of iphones, and how they seem to work well and everything looks nice, etc. I also have a Mac Air laptop, so it's easy to sync. (My daughter and GF and most everyone else I know uses iphones as well, which is another vote for it.) I haven't handled the phone yet, but I think the size of the 4.7 inch one is going to work very well for me.

CONS: No notification light on iphones, so I'm constantly picking up the phone and/or turning on the iphone 4 I'm currently using to see if I missed any messages.

Not impressive battery. I'd really like to get through a full day with some room to spare with moderate use and eliminate battery anxiety.

Little annoyances like an outgoing sound on texts that can't be turned off, and a couple of other irritants due to Apple design rigidity and stupidity.

ANDROIDS/OTHERS:

PROS: Notification light. Great batteries on some of the models. Two very important things to me.

CONS: I haven't found the perfect phone yet. The LG G2 is nice and includes two great things I want -- notification light and impressive battery --- but it's a little big for my liking, and the text and email font size can't be made very large, annoyingly. I can't read the maximum without glasses which is important to me, so would need to download separate apps for both emails and texts, and in my limited experience in that area with old LG Lucid, those can be irritating and prone to trouble and rarely work as seamlessly as pre-installeed features, and definitely do not match how nice and large iphone maximum fonts look.

Samsungs DO have big enough fonts, but I don't love any of their models for one reason or another.

So there you have it: iphone 6 v. an undecided Android, with LG G2 being leading contender. (Annoying that their verizon model is heavier and a little different than the others).

I do like the mini's of some of the androids in terms of size, but I don't think any of them offer astounding battery life, which is one of the things I'd want in an android.

Any thoughts?

 

[Thom]

I measured the Maxx three times ... right around three days charge each time I measured it. I use the Tylt wireless charger on my computer area. It just charges and holds the Maxx at a 45 degree angle. I never think about charging anymore.

(Maxx = Best Phone I Ever Owned)
(Droid Turbo Maxx should be announced soon.)

... Thom

 

[doogald]

My son uses the accessibility feature on his iPhone 5 to flash the led on the back (the camera flash) When he gets a notification with the screen turned off.

See http://m.imore.com/how-use-led-flash-your-iphone-notification-alerts

I realize that this is an android forum but there is a non-kludge way to get the functionality on an iPhone. What it does for battery life, though, I can't tell you.

I also use macs and everything syncs perfectly with my Maxx, all over the air. I never connect it by USB. It's not that difficult to sync contacts and calendars to Google with a mac these days.

 

[heycal]

My son uses the accessibility feature on his iPhone 5 to flash the led on the back (the camera flash) When he gets a notification with the screen turned off.

See How to use the LED flash as a visible notification light on your iPhone | iMore

I realize that this is an android forum but there is a non-kludge way to get the functionality on an iPhone. What it does for battery life, though, I can't tell you.

I also use macs and everything syncs perfectly with my Maxx, all over the air. I never connect it by USB. It's not that difficult to sync contacts and calendars to Google with a mac these days.

I use that flashing LED thing too, but it only goes off during the actual noticification and is essentially useless.

Good to know that Mac's sync well with your phone. I didn't think I'd care about syncing issues when I switched over from my old Lucid and started using my daughter's old iphone 4 a few months back, but it's actually pretty nice to be able to purchase apps on my Mac and have them magically show up on my phone and many other little things like ease of itunes library transferring, and so on.

Overall, my personality is about evenly split between an iphone guy and an Android guy, I've found. I'm a total non-techie who doesn't understand or care about terms like "root" and 'jailbreak' and 'USB' and so on, and I like many choices Apple has made and how nice and clean and simple everything is. But it also drives me crazy that I can't do certain things on my phone, and some of the choices Apple has made seem stunningly stupid to me.

In contast to my love-hate experiences with the iphone, however, I'm pretty much all love-love with the Mac Air I switched to after years of PC. Almost no complaints at all and I can't imagine ever going back.

 

[SNeitzel]

I understand your concerns with the lack of LED on the MAXX.
I though it was very strange at first as well and thought I would for sure end up missing important things because of it.

I was wrong.

The active display works beautifully. It does take some getting used to, but much like you mention about not being able to imagine going back to a PC from your Mac Air, I can't imagine going back to a phone without active display.

The bonus with the MAXX is the battery life. It is amazing. Period.
I would classify my use as moderate and I can easily go 2 days between charges. 3 if I am at home on WIFI and not constantly switching between connections. Even on a heavy use day (in the hospital with very poor signal, sending tons of texts, phone calls and looking up tons of stuff) I still ended the day with 30% battery from a full charge.

I am also very much split between Apple, PC and Android.
The first computer I ever worked on was an Apple IIe, I currently have OSX running on my Lenovo laptop and will be installing it on my newly built desktop PC/Hackintosh. I build and support PCs at work and for many of my friends. I bought the first OG DrOID a few days after it came out (the MAXX is my 3rd droid) but, I also own an iPad 2. Each one has its own positives and negatives.

I love my MAXX and I don't ever see myself switching to an iPhone but at the same time, I love the iPad experience and haven't personally used an android tablet that comes close.

I get the split personality thing...

 

[doogald]

Honestly, when I switched to the Maxx, which I bought because of the pure Android build and large battery, I thought I would miss the notification light as well. I simply don't miss it, and it's also convinced me that I can switch to an iPhone with only maybe a headache or two.

Fwiw, go to a Web browser on your Mac, open https://play.google.com/ and log in to your google account, and any apps that you purchase will load within a few seconds to your phone. I do that a lot, probably about a third of the time I buy an app for my phone, it's done from my computer.

The only notifications that I would care about missing by not seeing the light is text messages, but there is a text messaging replacement app called textra (and there's something you can't do on an iPhone - install a better messaging client) that will keep repeating the notification sound until you read the message, though there is also an app called Missed Text Reminder that will do the same thing if you want to use the stock messaging client or Hangouts for sms (with some more flexibility, too.) And I can see at a glance at my phone's screen that I've missed a notification with active display. If an iPhone is better for you, that's great, but you may be surprised how little you miss a notification light with active display. It's definitely easy to love a phone that gets you through even the most active day with battery to spare.

Good luck with whatever device you choose. I'm sure you won't go wrong with anything - there are so many great devices available these days.

 

[tweak4]

I'm right there with SNeitzel and Doogald. I was hesitant to switch to the Maxx at first, due to the lack of a notification light, but after getting used to the Active Display, I've come to the conclusion that it is a far better system.
Admittedly, you can't probably won't be able to tell from across the room that you have a new text message, but you will be able to see that you have a new notification of some sort, and if the phone is within about 8 feet, I find that I can recognize the icons well enough to tell what app is trying to get my attention.
The main weakness of the notification light was that there was a limited number of colors and patterns that the light could blink. The Active Display only has one color, but since it can actually show icons, there's no more "Does pulsing orange mean I have a Facebook message or a calendar appointment?" It is obvious what is happening even at a glance.

I use Textra also, and while mine is set up to only play the notification sound once, it does flash the icon until I acknowledge it, but it's good to have the option to have it either way.

 

[heycal]

I understand your concerns with the lack of LED on the MAXX.
I though it was very strange at first as well and thought I would for sure end up missing important things because of it.

I was wrong.

The active display works beautifully. It does take some getting used to, but much like you mention about not being able to imagine going back to a PC from your Mac Air, I can't imagine going back to a phone without active display.

Active display does sound great. But I specifically want a phone that sits on my nighttable or desk that emits a steady light I can see from a few feet away. I don't want to have to touch the phone, or peer it for a few seconds to see if something blinks after five seconds, or hear any sounds. Just a nice steady light that remains on. Can the Maxx offer this?

And I can see at a glance at my phone's screen that I've missed a notification with active display.

Other posters have suggested this isn't quite so, and will not do what I'd like it to do. Can you elaborate?

I believe Active Display is great for many occassions, and I do love that big battery, but an LED light that glows steadily is one of the main things I'm looking for a new phone.

 

[heycal]

Admittedly, you can't probably won't be able to tell from across the room that you have a new text message, but you will be able to see that you have a new notification of some sort, and if the phone is within about 8 feet, I find that I can recognize the icons well enough to tell what app is trying to get my attention.

I could live with this. I don't absolutely need to know that it's text or voice mail, just that something is there that needs attending to. (I've missed too many texts and voicemails on my other phones over the years that were sitting there for an hour or two but that I never noticed because nothing was lit up and I didn't pick up on phone to turn it on to check.) But I'm confused, because others have suggested I will not be able to see a notification from a few feet away.

If something lights up and stays lit up -- as opposed to slow intermittant flashing that one could miss in a split second glance at the phone -- and I can see it as I quickly pass by the phone on the kitchen table on the way to the living room, I could be happy.

 

[doogald]

Other posters have suggested this isn't quite so, and will not do what I'd like it to do. Can you elaborate?

Tweak4 already has. The phone will pulse with the icon of the app that most recently posted a notification, quickly when the notification first comes in, then pulsing slowly as time goes by. However, when the phone is moved (i.e., when you pick it up), it starts pulsing again. It will pulse with just a lock icon when you have no pending notifications. When you press the icon at the center, and there is more than one app with a notification, it will show all of the icons that are pending. You can choose to have all apps that notify do this, or restrict it to just the apps that are important to you, in one of the settings of Active Display.

With the lock icon, you can slide down to power up and unlock the phone with pressing the power button. The power button has become a power off button for me right now - I use active display to unlock the phone 95% of the time now.

And, as tweak4 also said, the LED in my old phones was never steady on - it pulsed as well - and, if it was multi-color, it had a limited number of colors it could use, many apps did not let you set the color (so both GMail and Messaging apps used green, so seeing green would tell you that it was one of those two apps), and, though you can change this with third party software, it only pulses one color - the last app to throw a notification.

Believe me, I get why you want LED notification - I used to insist on it as well. But, the truth is that my phone is rarely all that far away from me, I get more information from notification sounds when they come in than I ever did from LED pulsing, and active display is more than good enough for me. It's not a criteria for buying another phone - as I said, I'm sure I'd be fine with an iPhone in the future - and I've found that I quickly grew to like active display.

But, you're not me... Buy the phone that works best for you.

 

[heycal]

Tweak4 already has. The phone will pulse with the icon of the app that most recently posted a notification, quickly when the notification first comes in, then pulsing slowly as time goes by. However, when the phone is moved (i.e., when you pick it up), it starts pulsing again. It will pulse with just a lock icon when you have no pending notifications. When you press the icon at the center, and there is more than one app with a notification, it will show all of the icons that are pending. You can choose to have all apps that notify do this, or restrict it to just the apps that are important to you, in one of the settings of Active Display.

With the lock icon, you can slide down to power up and unlock the phone with pressing the power button. The power button has become a power off button for me right now - I use active display to unlock the phone 95% of the time now.

And, as tweak4 also said, the LED in my old phones was never steady on - it pulsed as well - and, if it was multi-color, it had a limited number of colors it could use, many apps did not let you set the color (so both GMail and Messaging apps used green, so seeing green would tell you that it was one of those two apps), and, though you can change this with third party software, it only pulses one color - the last app to throw a notification.

Believe me, I get why you want LED notification - I used to insist on it as well. But, the truth is that my phone is rarely all that far away from me, I get more information from notification sounds when they come in than I ever did from LED pulsing, and active display is more than good enough for me.

Well, now I'm confused, because earlier you wrote:

If you want a notification light that you can see across the room, the Moto X and the Droid Maxx are not for you.

I could maybe live with a slow pulse, though ideally I'd put in lightflow and get a steady option, and sometimes I might use the sounds as well.

But the real key is can I see a light of some sort from a few feet away without having to stare at the phone for several seconds to see if something blinks? Once I can truly understand the answer to that question, I'll be in a better position to make a decision.

 

[SNeitzel]

...a text messaging replacement app called textra ... that will keep repeating the notification sound until you read the message...

FYI... Handcent offers this as well. You can set the number of reminders, the duration between reminders and you can even set a different tone for reminders as well.

 

[Thom]

Here's a new idea for you ...

There is a Verizon corporate store and an independent store in my town. I always go to the independent and work with one person there.

I asked her last week if they ever had "loaners" where a person could take a particular model home and try it out.

At that particular store if you give them a credit card number you can take one of their demo phones home (with their number) and you could try this out and see if it met your needs.

Perhaps the Verizon store in your town would allow you to do the same thing with a demo Maxx.

The whole subject sounds absolutely stupid ... then you try it ... then you say "Oh" "Wow"

... Thom

 

[heycal]

Here's a new idea for you ...

There is a Verizon corporate store and an independent store in my town. I always go to the independent and work with one person there.

I asked her last week if they ever had "loaners" where a person could take a particular model home and try it out.

At that particular store if you give them a credit card number you can take one of their demo phones home (with their number) and you could try this out and see if it met your needs.

Perhaps the Verizon store in your town would allow you to do the same thing with a demo Maxx.

The whole subject sounds absolutely stupid ... then you try it ... then you say "Oh" "Wow"

... Thom

I'll ask about this, thanks. I do think active display sounds very cool and appealing for the most part, so I'm sold on tha. But I do want this one particular ability to glance down at the phone on the table where I often leave it and know instantly whether there's a message or not as I walk through the room, etc.

I guess what I want is similar to what home answering machines have always offered. When there's a message, the unit is lit up to alert you…. Imagine an answering machine without a notificiation light, forcing you to go over and press a button to see if if there was any calls? That's how I've been living the last few years with my LG Lucid and then the iphone 4, and it's annoying.

 

[doogald]

Well, now I'm confused, because earlier you wrote:

If you want a notification light that you can see across the room, the Moto X and the Droid Maxx are not for you.

I didn't mean to be confusing. Active display is not a light - it is a small area in the center of the display that pulses on and off - showing the time and a lock icon when you have no notifications, and when you have at least one unread notification, the lock icon is replaced by an icon representing the last app that has notified your phone.

It is not a light, probably not something that you can discern across the room, but certainly you can when the phone is relatively close. If you want a light, the Maxx won't have one. As I said, the active display feature replaced an LED notification light.

Perhaps some videos are a good idea so you see what AD is? This one from Android Central shows the feature pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TMycL9mzpg

and right on the Active Display app page on Google Play there is a video that Motorola made showing you some of the features; the video is toward the top of the page, next to a couple of photos: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.motorola.aon&hl=en

I could maybe live with a slow pulse, though ideally I'd put in lightflow and get a steady option

No, that doesn't work with Active Display. There is no way to get it stay on the display. Lightflow cannot control it at all.

But the real key is can I see a light of some sort from a few feet away without having to stare at the phone for several seconds to see if something blinks? Once I can truly understand the answer to that question, I'll be in a better position to make a decision.

No, you will have to stare at the phone for a few seconds, though if you pick up the phone it will definitely pulse. Again, you can see it in the videos. It's not always on, there is no way to make it always on.

The new Moto X that is coming at the end of the month has sensors that will start showing active display when you wave your hand in front of the display. It's possible that this year's models of Verizon's Droids will share that feature, as last year's shared all of the features of the 2013 Moto X. But, we don't know when the new Droids are coming, and the Moto X won't be out on Verizon until later this month at the earliest.

 

[doogald]

Sorry to add to this, but I forgot about one potential solution: the Droid Maxx has a feature (shared with the Moto X) called "Touchless controls", which allows you to command the phone by voice. After turning on the feature and "training" the phone to recognize your voice saying "OK Google Now", you can then wake the phone and there are a series of commands that you can give to control the phone, some of which get a spoken response.

One of them is "OK Google Now, what's up?". This command will read you the time followed by any pending notifications in the notification panel. Here is a story about the feature, along with a recorded audio sample of the output:

https://gigaom.com/2014/03/06/ask-your-moto-x-whats-up-and-it-reads-your-notifications-aloud/

So, with this feature, you can simply ask the phone (without touching it) if there are any unread notifications. It's just another option besides active display.

 

[heycal]

Perhaps some videos are a good idea so you see what AD is? This one from Android Central shows the feature pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TMycL9mzpg

No, you will have to stare at the phone for a few seconds, though if you pick up the phone it will definitely pulse. Again, you can see it in the videos. It's not always on, there is no way to make it always on.

Thanks for the link. I watched the video, and active display looks cool. But unless that icon stays on the screen steadily, I may go with a different phone so I don't have to stare at it.

What is the interval between flash/pulse times?