[APP] Light Flow - Control your LED notification and reminders (phone specific app.. works on DX)

[TheGr81]

The Droid X LED supports the primary red/green/blue colors which can be combined to make a variety of colors such as violet/purple, light blue, orange, yellow, light green, dark green, and for rooted phones, white.

The LED hardware/firmware, however, does approximations of the above colors, so, your mileage may vary depending (especially on the viewing angle). It seems that most Motorola Droid phones (original Droid, Droid X, Droid 2 / 2G, Milestone) can do the above.

You should also be aware that unless the app is writing directly to the brightness files, you won't be able to see the LED turned on while the screen is on. I think Andrew is staying away from doing the root thing since it does add a layer of complexity to the app.

Hope this helps.

Cheers!

So far I have found that white and sky blue do not work for me. Has anyone else with a Droid X had issues with specific colors?

 

[Deleted User]

Interesting, so I know there were multiple colors that did not work for me on Froyo, white definitely being one of them.

On Gingerbread, ALL of the colors work. White included.

 

[TheGr81]

Interesting, so I know there were multiple colors that did not work for me on Froyo, white definitely being one of them.

On Gingerbread, ALL of the colors work. White included.

OK I haven't installed the Gingerbread leak so it must be something with Froyo. Thanks for the info.

 

[andrewpmoore]

Wow, I've been away from this thread for a while!
Too damn busy with the app to keep on top of everything.

Firstly a big hello to scary alien, as it's his code that drives the basis of the HTC compatibility for light flow! Excellent work. By the way, on that note I've made light flow write to internal storage if external storage is not available as some people had issues if their card was mounted on their computer - I'm not sure if you do this for battmonx, but if you need any pointers, let me know.

Trooper, if you do have problems with the app and would like me to try and sort them out just PM me.

To Rockaholic, I've actually started work on contact support today. Not got far yet, but I've managed to get a contact list up and get the information back such as phone number, e-mail address etc so I've got something to try and match on.
It'll be a little while before I get support working, but rest assured I am working on it. I plan support for missed calls, sms, mms, gmail and possibly standard e-mail. Other notification types such as facebook I don't think I'll be doing as facebook recently revoked any access permission to other apps from hooking into their app - they never really supported it, but with a little decompilation and a look around their code pointed me on how to do it. Then they changed their security and shot that idea down just before a release I was going to make! Other apps I just can't get at the details to match on without polling the web interfaces which would impact battery life and add far too much extra complexity with all the apps supported.

It seems that on droids as long as the upgrade to the leaked gb builds are done correctly that there's better color support than on froyo from what I've heard from users.

I'm sure scary alien will agree, but there's nothing more frustrating than those 1* comments on the market from people slating your app about it not working, when if they just got in touch you could probably fix the problem. Trying to support all the android phones on the market isn't an easy task and when I don't have the luxury of being able to buy every single one of them the support of people with the phones by supplying useful feedback is essential.

 

[andrewpmoore]

And yes, at the moment I'm keeping away from the land of root specific functionality. It does add extra complexity and for the time being there's enough new features to try and add for stock unrooted phones. If I run out of other features to add (unlikely for quite some time) then I might look into them.

 

[andrewpmoore]

Andrew, I just wanted to say that Lightflow is precisely what I've been looking for, for nearly a year. The authors of Blink asked what improvements they could make to the app and I talked with one of the devs and said that a universal app that would give me full control over the color of all of my LED notifications, and allow them to flash colors in order, would probably be a $5 app to me.

They ignored the input... you clearly knew what I was going for, though. Immediate knowledge of all notifications awaiting me by glancing at my LED is awesome. At a buck USD, I think you're under-selling it because it's a great app and the updates I get all the time tell me you're committed to it.

Hope you stick with it!

Thanks for the comment. I initially wrote the app for myself as I wanted exactly the same as you. After starting learning android (i'm a java developer by day) a week later I found myself releasing light flow to the market.

I've certainly no intention of stopping development as there's so many cool features that I still want to try and add.

 

[PolishPauL]

I am having a problem with the contact specific LED for Handcent. I set a contact to blue, but it is still also blinking green, which is my texting LED. I want it to just blink blue. Is this a bug?

Also, I don't like that this app turns the button back lights on. I use AdjBrightness to turn them off because my Droid X lights are too bright. It would be great if this app could turn them off.

 

[andrewpmoore]

I am having a problem with the contact specific LED for Handcent. I set a contact to blue, but it is still also blinking green, which is my texting LED. I want it to just blink blue. Is this a bug?

Also, I don't like that this app turns the button back lights on. I use AdjBrightness to turn them off because my Droid X lights are too bright. It would be great if this app could turn them off.

The only time it should flash but and green in that situation is if you have the same contact phone number against 2 people in your contact list, one which you've set specific notifications up for and the other that you haven't. If that's not the case, let me know and I get try get some more information off you to look into it.

As for the button backlights, just go into "general settings" in lightflow and there's an option about the button backlights, in there just switch it to "no control" instead of "control when the screen is off"

Cheers
Andrew

 

[PhilD]

i want Andrew to know that i really appreciate this app - ever since the gingerbread update in late may, the LED notifications no longer work correctly on my droid X but Light Flow fixes that and has been running flawlessly!

 

[andrewpmoore]

i want Andrew to know that i really appreciate this app - ever since the gingerbread update in late may, the LED notifications no longer work correctly on my droid X but Light Flow fixes that and has been running flawlessly!

Thanks, it's great to get positive feedback like that!

 

[daisypusher10]

I'm the author of light flow. The way I personally use the app is to leave all standard notifications as they are, then just use light flow to set the colors for the different apps. If a particular app or event doesn't support sound notifications or vibration patterns I then use light flow to set them. In that way I don't have to go through every app enabling and disabling different settings.

I know some people do switch off the notifications in other apps, but I've tried to make it so there's little for the user to do on installing, because if people decide to uninstall, then it's time to go back through all those apps resetting everything back!

I would like for my LED to always stay on, but I cant figure out how to do that. I already tried changing the priority as well as changing the LED flash speed to "always on" but it sill keeps blinking. I would appreciate any help ):

 

[SlvrScoobie]

Wow, how did i miss this.

man i miss berrybuzz! cant wait to install

 

[andrewpmoore]

I would like for my LED to always stay on, but I cant figure out how to do that. I already tried changing the priority as well as changing the LED flash speed to "always on" but it sill keeps blinking. I would appreciate any help ):

Motorola phones, just like my nexus one completely ignore the always on option. It's set in the code, but motorola ignore it.
The only way around that is to use direct mode, but you may need your phone rooting and will get a lot less colors to choose from.

 

[andyknights]

And yes, at the moment I'm keeping away from the land of root specific functionality. It does add extra complexity and for the time being there's enough new features to try and add for stock unrooted phones. If I run out of other features to add (unlikely for quite some time) then I might look into them.

Do you still try to support those on rooted phones though?

- I'm on GV2.8 (HTC Desire), and I can't get your app to work - but there's so many options, its hard to know that I've got it set up right....any pointers. It seems to flash orange when I get email thru gmail, but I can't seem to get it to flash blue when I get a text (I used Handcent). I've tried turning the alternate monitor on and off, but this doesn't seem to be working. It doesn't even flash when I run it in test....is this a hardware constraint, or am I doing something wrong (I use the Mixer option)....

(sorry that this is on a Droid X forum, but this is all about the Lightflow app....)

 

[andyknights]

Do you still try to support those on rooted phones though?

- I'm on GV2.8 (HTC Desire), and I can't get your app to work - but there's so many options, its hard to know that I've got it set up right....any pointers. It seems to flash orange when I get email thru gmail, but I can't seem to get it to flash blue when I get a text (I used Handcent). I've tried turning the alternate monitor on and off, but this doesn't seem to be working. It doesn't even flash when I run it in test....is this a hardware constraint, or am I doing something wrong (I use the Mixer option)....

(sorry that this is on a Droid X forum, but this is all about the Lightflow app....)

Actually, it doesn't seem to work for me, for gmail either....even though the light sometimes flashes, it doesn't continue to do so. And yes, I have the option selected for it to continue indefinitely, and the clear notification style is set to 3 - when gmail viewed....but no amber flashing...sigh...

Please help if you can, thanks.

 

[andyknights]

Actually, it doesn't seem to work for me, for gmail either....even though the light sometimes flashes, it doesn't continue to do so. And yes, I have the option selected for it to continue indefinitely, and the clear notification style is set to 3 - when gmail viewed....but no amber flashing...sigh...

Please help if you can, thanks.

Sincere apologies all for the triple post, but I am continually working on this issue and trying to resolve it myself - I've got it such that the gmail one is flashing and the blue on is solid - but I can't get it to flash.....that's where I am now...

Awesome app, really glad to finally have my LED notifs back - thanks.

 

[andrewpmoore]

Sincere apologies all for the triple post, but I am continually working on this issue and trying to resolve it myself - I've got it such that the gmail one is flashing and the blue on is solid - but I can't get it to flash.....that's where I am now...

Awesome app, really glad to finally have my LED notifs back - thanks.

Sorry I'm a bit late to this. The HTC Desire is really strange with its colors. All the control we do is via some files in the phones rom. There's a brightness file (solid light) and a blink file (flashing light). For some unknown reason there's a blink file for amber and green, but not blue, that's why the option isn't there.

I've been working hard over the last week trying to do program based control of the led flashing, but I'm not very happy with the results. It's too much of a battery drainer as every time the light changes state the phone needs to partially wake. I've had it to a point where battery drain was quite good, but after a while it just stops working. I'm still working on it and hope at some point to add it to a release. I keep having a go, giving up, working on other stuff and then coming back to it. The last attempt was certainly the closest yet to being releasable.

 

[andyknights]

Sorry I'm a bit late to this. The HTC Desire is really strange with its colors. All the control we do is via some files in the phones rom. There's a brightness file (solid light) and a blink file (flashing light). For some unknown reason there's a blink file for amber and green, but not blue, that's why the option isn't there.

I've been working hard over the last week trying to do program based control of the led flashing, but I'm not very happy with the results. It's too much of a battery drainer as every time the light changes state the phone needs to partially wake. I've had it to a point where battery drain was quite good, but after a while it just stops working. I'm still working on it and hope at some point to add it to a release. I keep having a go, giving up, working on other stuff and then coming back to it. The last attempt was certainly the closest yet to being releasable.

Thanks Andrew - I am experiencing it all working fine, for about half a day - and then it all goes a bit awry and all the notifications partially/fully stop working. A phone reboot gets it all working again, but not for that long - which is a real shame.

(Sorry Droid X users - I'm HTC Desire - but this thread seems all about Lightflow)

 

[PACAnesFan]

Question for the dev...

I am using a stock rooted .602 Droid X. Everything works well except email notifications. I use IMAP for work. When an email is received, the unread email notification light works fine. However, if I check the email from my desktop and the email gets marked as read, the light will remain on until I clear it using one of the options from Lightflow (app, screen, etc.)

With the stock LED system, the light will clear itself when an email is read from another computer without any user intervention.

 

[andrewpmoore]

Thanks Andrew - I am experiencing it all working fine, for about half a day - and then it all goes a bit awry and all the notifications partially/fully stop working. A phone reboot gets it all working again, but not for that long - which is a real shame.

(Sorry Droid X users - I'm HTC Desire - but this thread seems all about Lightflow)

If you add the debug widget to your homescreen does it show that the notifications are on that you expect to be? Just trying to isolate where the problem may be. I have an HTC desire myself and haven't had this - although a Nexus One is my main development phone.

 

[MOMO84]

Hi Andrew,

Can I just ask, why do you need so much access to our personal details (emails, sms, calendar, contacts)?

I did download this app, but was worried about there being too much access to the contents of my phone, so I uninstalled it.

Is there anyway that you could require less access...I really want this app, but don't like the idea of my details being exposed.

 

[scary alien]

Hi Andrew,

Can I just ask, why do you need so much access to our personal details (emails, sms, calendar, contacts)?

I did download this app, but was worried about there being too much access to the contents of my phone, so I uninstalled it.

Is there anyway that you could require less access...I really want this app, but don't like the idea of my details being exposed.

MOMO84,

Welcome to the AndroidForums!

I hope Andrew doesn't mind, but I'll take a quick try at an answer for you.

The app needs those permissions to things in order to be able to do the monitoring and notifications that the app excels at. I'm certain there is nothing nefarious being done by the app with the items that you are concerned about.

All of those permissions correlate to a monitoring / notification feature of the app itself.

You can use a variety of means to help you determine the relative "safety" and security of an app. One of them is the number of downloads and ratings that an app has. The paid version of Light Flow has 2,758 comments and more than 10,000 downloads. The Lite (free) version has 964 comments and over 500,000 downloads. If there were an issue with this particular app and or developer, someone would have outed him by now and Google would have pulled the app.

For more information about evaluating an app's permissions, please refer to this extremely well-written guide by one of own own AF staff members:

http://androidforums.com/android-applications/36936-android-permissions-explained-security-tips-avoiding-malware.html

I hope that helps and we are very pleased that you signed-up with us here at AF.

Cheers!

edit: I also looked on the website for Light Flow and found this:

Light Flow - FAQ's

The app seems to require an awful lot of permissions, are they all really needed?
Yes, there's a lot of monitoring required to perform the functions the app performs, below is a list of permissions and why they are needed.

• Receive SMS - to register when an SMS has been received
• Receive MMS - to register when an MMS has been received
• Read SMS - to count the number of unread SMS messages
• Read MMS - to count the number of unread MMS messages
• Read Gmail - to count the number of unread Gmails
• Camera - take photos - this is required on some samsung phones to control the camera flash as it won't activate until the auto focus system is initialized, this only happens with the camera permission.
• Read instant messages - to access new notifications from Gtalk
• Read phone state and identity - to not perform sound notifications when in a call
• Read Contact data - to be able to see if the last call was a missed call
• Read Calendar events - to show calendar notifications
• Prevent phone from sleeping - to change the color in succession when the phone screen is off
• Modify/delete SD card contents - to backup and restore settings to SD card, and for logging if switched on
• View network status - to notify when there's no signal
• Control vibrator - for vibrating the phone on notifications
• Automatically start at boot - to start light flow when the phone starts up
• Discover known accounts, view configured accounts - to list the gmail accounts for notifications

 

[andrewpmoore]

Thanks scary alien, you beat me to it! I was going to supply the details in the faq, but your response is better!

 

[scary alien]

Thanks scary alien, you beat me to it! I was going to supply the details in the faq, but your response is better!

LOL, Andrew, no problem, sir!

The more I dug, the more I found you had already addressed all of the questions on your website and in the Market description.

Hope things are going well for you .

Cheers!
-SA

 

[pcryan23]

I have the galaxy nexus and the biggest problem I have with this application is that for some reason it turns on the talk back featute even though it shows it is not selected and it doesnt make a difference whether you check the feature then uncheck it the damn thing keeps running in the background as long as the light flow app is running i noticed that the developer for this app commented here any ideas on how to fix this? I tried the free version of the app but i dont want to risk buying it if the same crap wilk happen