Help No LED Notification Light (uses ambient display)

[TheXFactor]

Hmmm... no replaceable battery, no sd card, no led light? It's not like there wasn't enough room on a 6" phone

I've been using the Moto X for more than a year. I came from the phones that had all of that. I don't miss any of it. The active display is crazy good. With all the places to plug in and charge, who needs to carry around another battery (having to pay for an extra one too). SD card? Get the 64 gig, use the cloud, dropbox, it's the 21st century.

 

[halon]

Turns out there is an LED behind the top speaker. You need root to do anything with it.

 

[jkc120]

Turns out there is an LED behind the top speaker. You need root to do anything with it.

I turned it on with light flow but I'm a little worried what the longevity of the led will be if it wasn't intended for notifications?

 

[SAL8116]

So far not a big fan of the ambient display.

 

[CL3nglish]

I think they disabled the led so the ambient display could be the star of the show.

If it will ever be enabled is anyone's guess, but I'd love it if it were..... And I could find the phone.

 

[alee0729]

I turned it on with light flow but I'm a little worried what the longevity of the led will be if it wasn't intended for notifications?

LEDs have extremely high service lives. They will certainly last longer than you'll keep your phone.

 

[jkc120]

LEDs have extremely high service lives. They will certainly last longer than you'll keep your phone.

True, but it was destroying my battery keeping my phone awake constantly. So I'm just using ambient display and coming to really like it.

 

[alee0729]

True, but it was destroying my battery keeping my phone awake constantly. So I'm just using ambient display and coming to really like it.

Ambient display is good... not as good as the Moto X implementation but acceptable until they work out some of the bugs.

"Destroying your battery" with LightFlow seems like a bit of an exaggeration. Having used it on past devices, LightFlow had a tendency to wakelock the device and it would get better/worse based on the version you ran, but the single LED is way more power efficient than your AMOLED display (which is, as the name implies also an LED). Lighting up 1 LED behind the speaker is more efficient than lighting up a few thousand to do a notification.

 

[jkc120]

Ambient display is good... not as good as the Moto X implementation but acceptable until they work out some of the bugs.

"Destroying your battery" with LightFlow seems like a bit of an exaggeration. Having used it on past devices, LightFlow had a tendency to wakelock the device and it would get better/worse based on the version you ran, but the single LED is way more power efficient than your AMOLED display (which is, as the name implies also an LED). Lighting up 1 LED behind the speaker is more efficient than lighting up a few thousand to do a notification.

I've used light flow in the past. The "normal" battery drain would have been acceptable. This was much worse. Like keeping my phone awake 40% of the time bad. So yes, destroyed.

 

[halon]

I've turned off Ambient Display, don't want it. I may or may not make use of the LED under the speaker?

 

[El Presidente]

I've used light flow in the past. The "normal" battery drain would have been acceptable. This was much worse. Like keeping my phone awake 40% of the time bad. So yes, destroyed.

Wow, that is pretty bad.

Doesn't ambient display keep the device awake too?

 

[TheAmazingDave]

The Ambient Display is growing on me. I found that after setting a lockscreen pin, and setting Google Now to respond with the screen off but not actually allow for lockscreen searches, that saying OK Google turns on the screen showing notifications for a few seconds. Pretty neat to check the notifications without touching the phone at all.

 

[Geese1]

Now that I've had the phone for over a week now, I've been curious on exactly how Ambient Display is supposed to work.

I originally thought that if you had it active, it would pulse when a notification first arrived, and at regular intervals after that until you opened the message. However, from what I'm seeing it only activates once when the notification first arrives, and not any time after. If you miss it when it first comes in, you'll need to pick up the phone to see any pending notifications on the lock screen.

Is this the way it's supposed to work? While not a big deal, it does mean I have to pick up the phone more often to check for any notifications I might have missed. Not a huge hassle really, but just curious as to whether that is the way it's supposed to function.

 

[CL3nglish]

I believe that is the way it works on the Nex6. I've heard on the Moto X it "breathes". I'm assuming that it means it pulsates on and off. Moto X seems to have a much more advanced Ambient Display.

This is why I'm not a big fan of Ambient Display. I disable mine. Much prefer a led.

 

[Geese1]

I believe that is the way it works on the Nex6. I've heard on the Moto X it "breathes". I'm assuming that it means it pulsates on and off. Moto X seems to have a much more advanced Ambient Display.

This is why I'm not a big fan of Ambient Display. I disable mine. Much prefer a led.

I guess I thought it worked more like the Moto X. I can only imagine someone will create a fix for the Nexus 6 that makes it work more like the Moto, if they haven't already.

 

[Biaviian]

My biggest issue is the SiriusXM app. It will turn on the ambient screen several times a song when nothing has changed.

 

[jj14x]

However, from what I'm seeing it only activates once when the notification first arrives, and not any time after. If you miss it when it first comes in, you'll need to pick up the phone to see any pending notifications on the lock screen.

That ^^^
My thoughts exactly. I miss the LED notification (with lightflow) on my Nexus 5 - didn't even need to pick the phone up. I could tell (from a distance), whether there were notifications for me, and if so, what type of notifications (based on the color of the LED)

I guess I'll get used to it. I really like the N6. I've gotten used to the size now.

 

[Alex1969]

Guys new nexus user here..I must say I really love this phone.. One question tho I really love ambient display but my shit just keeps pulsating on the lockscreen every 30 seconds are so.. I dont want to turn off ambient display... could it be the screen protector i have on it?? Ive got the glass screen protector on it... any ideas??

The Ambient Display is growing on me. I found that after setting a lockscreen pin, and setting Google Now to respond with the screen off but not actually allow for lockscreen searches, that saying OK Google turns on the screen showing notifications for a few seconds. Pretty neat to check the notifications without touching the phone at all.

Hey dave thats an amazing combo bro thanks for sharing.... btw i found out something about ambient display and the whole blinking on the lockscreen.. check the notification light setting in the inbox general setting.. i never really thought about checking it cause the nexus doesnt really have a notification light... you do that and it actually is more consistent with its lockscreen blinking.... found this info out on xda...

 

[lunatic59]

I just noticed today on my drive home that with the phone plugged in to a charger, the notifications will pulse every 30 seconds or so until i dismiss them. Off the charger it didn't do this.

 

[jj14x]

I just noticed today on my drive home that with the phone plugged in to a charger, the notifications will pulse every 30 seconds or so until i dismiss them. Off the charger it didn't do this.

I noticed that too, but I wonder if it was because of the movement in the car (bumps). It doesn't pulse when I'm at the office. Try this out the next time - hold your finger over the proximity sensor (so the phone thinks that you have it in your pocket). I suspect the notifications won't pulse till you remove your finger from the sensor - at least that's what I noticed when I was driving.

 

[lunatic59]

I specifically left the phone unplugged in the car this morning and the notifications did not pulse like they did last night, whether I would dismiss them or not. FWIW, I dismiss them on the 360, not the phone.

 

[Alex1969]

I specifically left the phone unplugged in the car this morning and the notifications did not pulse like they did last night, whether I would dismiss them or not. FWIW, I dismiss them on the 360, not the phone.

go to inbox settings and turn on lights enabled.. that should take care of it.. at least it helped for me...

 

[shalemail]

FYI ....the N6 does in fact have an LED notification light. It's just super stupid difficult to make it work.

https://gigaom.com/2014/11/21/the-nexus-6-has-a-secret-led-but-it-doesnt-show-notifications/

 

[Alex1969]

yeah I read that but I believe you have to be rooted to make it work and I really don't think people want to go through that kind of crap sides why the hell would you want to root this device this device is pretty freaking awesome unrooted shoot it would have to be a really awesome ROM for me to root this device...

 

[shalemail]

Yes it does require root which I am also not a fan of. But I don't need a notification LED either