FYI: Changing LED Notification Light color based on App - Light Flow

[andrewpmoore]

I am having issues working this app on my HTC Sensation. Any suggestions?

I'm pretty sure that the Sensation requires root to access the LED control files as HTC don't implement being able to change the led color using the standard android development tools. Older HTC phones didn't require root, but all the latest seem to.

It's very annoying (that and the fact you can only get 3 colors - who of them being different tones of orange!)

 

[bucks13]

Well that's good to hear, that you're continuing to work on the development of this app. I look forward to the continuing updates. Thank you.

 

[emeralddreams]

I'm pretty sure that the Sensation requires root to access the LED control files as HTC don't implement being able to change the led color using the standard android development tools. Older HTC phones didn't require root, but all the latest seem to.

It's very annoying (that and the fact you can only get 3 colors - who of them being different tones of orange!)

So, does that mean you a work around is possible? If so when do you think that may be available? I live by leds and the current format is driving me crazy. Esp after using something like bebuzz on blackberry. Also will Skype be a product that will be supported?

 

[andrewpmoore]

So, does that mean you a work around is possible? If so when do you think that may be available? I live by leds and the current format is driving me crazy. Esp after using something like bebuzz on blackberry. Also will Skype be a product that will be supported?

I can't work around the root issue (but you can root your phone if it's available yet) or the 3 colors as that's a hardware limitation, but skype is already supported in the full version of the app.

 

[Troyer48]

It looks like the Gingerbread update they pushed yesterday changed something in the way the notification LED is addressed. Light Flow isn't changing it and other apps like LED Tester that just light up the LED for color testing do nothing.

 

[andrewpmoore]

It looks like the Gingerbread update they pushed yesterday changed something in the way the notification LED is addressed. Light Flow isn't changing it and other apps like LED Tester that just light up the LED for color testing do nothing.

Is this the same for everybody, or is anyone having any luck?

 

[bucks13]

Is this the same for everybody, or is anyone having any luck?

Mine is still functioning like before the update.

 

[andrewpmoore]

Mine is still functioning like before the update.

Thanks. I haven't had any other reports of problems after the upgrade.
Does the atrix have any led settings in phone settings and then either display or sounds like some other phones?

 

[AndrewTo]

Hi I'd like to ask if service is never occupy rams and has CPU usage?
and, is this app a setvice, or an normal background app that will consume ram and CPU? (ultimately brought tiny battery reduction, I wouldnt consider to use until I got myself a spare battery )

 

[andrewpmoore]

Hi I'd like to ask if service is never occupy rams and has CPU usage?
and, is this app a setvice, or an normal background app that will consume ram and CPU? (ultimately brought tiny battery reduction, I wouldnt consider to use until I got myself a spare battery )

Hi. It runs as a service using an alarm manager which means it doesn't need to run all the time.

I've spent a lot of time trying to make it efficient on battery use and won't add features some people request if it would kill the battery. I don't find it makes much difference to battery use. Maybe other users could comment too.

 

[maggieo]

Hi there - hoping Andrew will see my message - I realize I'm in the wrong "area" on here - but I (also a former BB owner and Berry Buzz LOVER) am wanting to find out if there are any show stoppers to using Light Flow on the Samsung Charge which does NOT (not clue why) have an LED. I am using something called noLED to give me led's - it's okay.. but I need the repeating alerts more.. As Bucks13 above may have been asking - I would be looking for different length "vibrations" so that without looking at my phone I could tell if something was an sms or email etc.. Also missing in general from the Droids are "profiles" - so I wonder if there are ways that with Light Flow - I could have it do one thing when the phone is on silent/vibrate only and different for audible alerts. Andrew, is there a website or anything for your app? I found a link to FAQ's but it was broken. Would love to hear from you.. Thanks much - Maggie

 

[andrewpmoore]

Hi there - hoping Andrew will see my message - I realize I'm in the wrong "area" on here - but I (also a former BB owner and Berry Buzz LOVER) am wanting to find out if there are any show stoppers to using Light Flow on the Samsung Charge which does NOT (not clue why) have an LED. I am using something called noLED to give me led's - it's okay.. but I need the repeating alerts more.. As Bucks13 above may have been asking - I would be looking for different length "vibrations" so that without looking at my phone I could tell if something was an sms or email etc.. Also missing in general from the Droids are "profiles" - so I wonder if there are ways that with Light Flow - I could have it do one thing when the phone is on silent/vibrate only and different for audible alerts. Andrew, is there a website or anything for your app? I found a link to FAQ's but it was broken. Would love to hear from you.. Thanks much - Maggie

I'm not sure if the samsung charge has a camera flash, but if it does you may be able to use that for notifications.

At the moment there's a choice of 1,2 or 3 vibrations either short, medium or long in length but I am planning on adding a custom option where you will be able to add on/off patterns for vibrations.

I've had a few people asking about profiles, there's nothing at the moment other than switching notifications off at a certain time of day (usually for sleeping), but it's an area I am interested in developing further. There's probably quite a lot of work in it though for some of the things I'm thinking of.

As I've never actually seen berry buzz, what sort of profile changes does it have? Does it automatically change profile and if so, when events trigger the change?

As for an FAQ, it's here:Light Flow - FAQ's

On the day you posted for the first time in 18months amazon were having problems with their hosting in the region I've got the server running. I'm guessing that's why you couldn't see it.

 

[maggieo]

Hi Andrew, thanks SO MUCH for your message.. if you haven't heard anything that your app won't run on the Charge, I'm going to try it.. The three types of vibs you have are all I need - but do you have sound choices too? Sounds like it.. Of coruse I need the "opposite of sleep" but maybe I can adjust the times - I need vibrate at work and sound out of work.. I guess the profiles I was talking about are all "blackberry based" rather than "berry buzz" based.. so I set myself up two custom profiles on the BBErry - a sound one and a vib one, and within each, berry buzz had options for EVERYTHING you could imagine - however, all I care about are calls, missed calls, sms/mms, and email.. so I could set them with the vib - sounds same as yours 1,2, or 3 vibes and they could be short, med or long.. that's more than enough.. BBuzz also had led stuff - which I didn't care that much about - however I did like it for missed SMS and calls.. I didn't use it for anything else. I get a zillion emails and have three email accoiunts.. oh - you could pick the time of the repeating alert - not sure if you can do taht on your app - so it could repeat at 2 mins or 10 or whatever you wanted.. so some I had more often and some less often.. As far as sounds - you could assign sounds to each of these things too - or ringtones as they are probably called.. one thing "negative" about the samsung charge vs the bberry - is the sounds are really soft.. I have the volume up all the way and they're really soft.. I guess I can download ringtones - something I've never even done, b/c I just need loud sounds and ones I can differentiate for call/missed call, sms/mms (which don't seem to be different on this droid phone, and emails) .. Oh - I could have different behavior for each of my email accounts - so is that something your app can do? So really the profiles were blackberry specific.. I saw seomthing the other day in a forum about getting profules for the droid.. haven't looked into tat.. honestly, there is a lot of stuff I miss from my bberry - not including the tiny screen and really slow browser!! so - let's see.. some of the stuff you talk about working on, I don't really need.. but the different vibs - you are all set on that.. and hopefully I could use ringtones also, and different ones? and can I use different ringtones for different email accounts? I guess I should have read your faqs first.. maybe by using the main "sound vs no sound" I could control that - or by setting sleep times - they don't have to make sense! However - I did have missed call make sound even if my phone was on vib.. it was just a really soft sound.. and an led of course - which this darn phone doesn't have.. I would be more than happy to help you understand what us "berry buzz" users loved, and I would be a beta tester for you if you wanted - as well as I have NO ISSUES paying for the app.. I didn't even look, but I expect to pay or donate for stuff like this that make my world work! I forget how much berry buzz was, but it was well worth every penny.. I got friends w/a guy from the company b/c I had problems getting it working at first.. So - see if this makes sense to you and let me know if you think it could work for me. funny, I googled berry buzz for android and most people just talked about this "call minder" app - which doesn't do email.. but I also am hooked up w/a 3rd level verizon guy due to some reception problems, and when I asked him about repeating alerts he gave me your app.. so that was cool.. We (my husband and I) have only had our droids a little less than two weeks and I'm still struggling trying to get the "few-ish" things we need working to work.. he uses business (not corporate) email and a calendar he lives by.. I needed a customizable alarm system - which I have one that is "okay.." I have the noLED app - not sure how that will interact w/your app, and it has some issues.. and then I just REALLY need my repeating alerts app.. but I need sound too - and it sounds like I can get that from Light Flow.. Anyway, I'm rambling - sorry everyone.. please feel free to contact me directly if you'd like.. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put my email address here - and I don't want to lose this whole message, but I definitely allowed this forum to let you message me.. I did NOT get a notification that you had posted in here, but I will keep watching.. tomorrow (weds) I am out of town.. Thanks again Andrew.. I really hope your app can be my new favorite!!! Maggie

 

[AndrewTo]

installed it on atrix, LED flash rate doesnt change anything >_< I wont stare at phone juz to wait da LED blink up, I really only want it stay on to be noticeble even not staring at da phone...
dis app occupy 8mb ram, prolly can be less I assume?

 

[bucks13]

Thanks. I haven't had any other reports of problems after the upgrade.
Does the atrix have any led settings in phone settings and then either display or sounds like some other phones?

It does in settings>display..."Notification LED; Blink LED to notify me".

I did notice that although I have your settings on for sleep to not blink LED from 11 pm to 6 am, it still does....seems that some system setting is overriding your program settings, no?

 

[andrewpmoore]

installed it on atrix, LED flash rate doesnt change anything >_< I wont stare at phone juz to wait da LED blink up, I really only want it stay on to be noticeble even not staring at da phone...
dis app occupy 8mb ram, prolly can be less I assume?

The android developer kit allows me to set on/off times or solid on for leds. Some phones completely ignore this. My nexus One ignores it, and all motorola phones that I am aware of do also. I think it's possible to make it solid with root access and "direct mode" of the app may allow solid if rooted as we bypass the android dev kit and interact with the hardware directly through unix.

The app probably could use less memory, but there's a trade off between using less battery and more memory or visa-versa, so a fair bit is held in memory to allow for less app code running on every event - hence using less battery.
Lots of running service apps use several mb for similar reasons.

 

[andrewpmoore]

It does in settings>display..."Notification LED; Blink LED to notify me".

I did notice that although I have your settings on for sleep to not blink LED from 11 pm to 6 am, it still does....seems that some system setting is overriding your program settings, no?

I've had 2 reports of it not sleeping since that feature was put in months ago. For those users it seemed like the "sleep" was offset from the actual values set by 1 or 2 hours. I'm not sure why and haven't managed to track down why this happens for a few people.

 

[andrewpmoore]

Hi Andrew, thanks SO MUCH for your message.. if you haven't heard anything that your app won't run on the Charge, I'm going to try it.. The three types of vibs you have are all I need - but do you have sound choices too?

Yes there are sound options too. You will need to switch off sounds in the default app if you are using "initial sounds", if you just want repeating sounds then just set those on in the app.

Sounds like it.. Of coruse I need the "opposite of sleep" but maybe I can adjust the times - I need vibrate at work and sound out of work..

I had never thought of it that way around, but yes, hopefully that would be possible

I guess the profiles I was talking about are all "blackberry based" rather than "berry buzz" based.. so I set myself up two custom profiles on the BBErry - a sound one and a vib one, and within each, berry buzz had options for EVERYTHING you could imagine - however, all I care about are calls, missed calls, sms/mms, and email.. so I could set them with the vib - sounds same as yours 1,2, or 3 vibes and they could be short, med or long.. that's more than enough..

You happen to have the same list as I'm interested in. I've written all the other types from user requests, but that's the only ones I personally use.

BBuzz also had led stuff - which I didn't care that much about - however I did like it for missed SMS and calls..

You should be able to do that too.

I didn't use it for anything else. I get a zillion emails and have three email accoiunts.. oh - you could pick the time of the repeating alert - not sure if you can do taht on your app - so it could repeat at 2 mins or 10 or whatever you wanted.. so some I had more often and some less often..

You can select the length of time to repeat for and a range of frequencies such as ever 30 seconds up to once every several hours

As far as sounds - you could assign sounds to each of these things too - or ringtones as they are probably called..
one thing "negative" about the samsung charge vs the bberry - is the sounds are really soft.. I have the volume up all the way and they're really soft.. I guess I can download ringtones - something I've never even done, b/c I just need loud sounds and ones I can differentiate for call/missed call, sms/mms (which don't seem to be different on this droid phone, and emails) .. Oh - I could have different behavior for each of my email accounts - so is that something your app can do?

The app can have different notification sounds for different gmail accounts, but at the moment its limited to just one sound for other email accounts. I hope to add more specific notification types per account for the e-mail client k9 in the future but haven't yet. Android is very strict on permissions so it's quite difficult to interact in great detail with some apps

So really the profiles were blackberry specific.. I saw seomthing the other day in a forum about getting profules for the droid.. haven't looked into tat..

I use an app called settings profile full for different profiles which automatically change phone settings based on a combination of time, system events such as charging or even phone location (based on the cell towers nearby)

honestly, there is a lot of stuff I miss from my bberry - not including the tiny screen and really slow browser!! so - let's see.. some of the stuff you talk about working on, I don't really need.. but the different vibs - you are all set on that.. and hopefully I could use ringtones also, and different ones? and can I use different ringtones for different email accounts? I guess I should have read your faqs first.. maybe by using the main "sound vs no sound" I could control that - or by setting sleep times - they don't have to make sense! However - I did have missed call make sound even if my phone was on vib.. it was just a really soft sound.. and an led of course - which this darn phone doesn't have.. I would be more than happy to help you understand what us "berry buzz" users loved, and I would be a beta tester for you if you wanted - as well as I have NO ISSUES paying for the app.. I didn't even look, but I expect to pay or donate for stuff like this that make my world work! I forget how much berry buzz was, but it was well worth every penny.. I got friends w/a guy from the company b/c I had problems getting it working at first.. So - see if this makes sense to you and let me know if you think it could work for me. funny, I googled berry buzz for android and most people just talked about this "call minder" app - which doesn't do email.. but I also am hooked up w/a 3rd level verizon guy due to some reception problems, and when I asked him about repeating alerts he gave me your app.. so that was
cool..

I think that's pretty cool too

We (my husband and I) have only had our droids a little less than two weeks and I'm still struggling trying to get the "few-ish" things we need working to work.. he uses business (not corporate) email and a calendar he lives by.. I needed a customizable alarm system - which I have one that is "okay.." I have the noLED app - not sure how that will interact w/your app, and it has some issues.. and then I just REALLY need my repeating alerts app.. but I need sound too - and it sounds like I can get that from Light Flow.. Anyway, I'm rambling - sorry everyone.. please feel free to contact me directly if you'd like.. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put my email address here - and I don't want to lose this whole message, but I definitely allowed this forum to let you message me.. I did NOT get a notification that you had posted in here, but I will keep watching.. tomorrow (weds) I am out of town.. Thanks again Andrew.. I really hope your app can be my new favorite!!! Maggie

Just let me know if there's anything else you might need. PM me if you want.....and I may be back to you in the future to find out more about be/berrybuzz

Cheers

 

[maggieo]

Hi Andrew - thanks so much.. I'm going to get your app this weekend and see what I can do.. I have three email accounts, so will be a bummer not to be able to have different sounds.. one is a gmail though.. I have a corp email as well as a pop email... but anyway, I'll give it a try and let you know how I do..
Thanks so much..
- Maggie

 

[Troyer48]

The android developer kit allows me to set on/off times or solid on for leds. Some phones completely ignore this. My nexus One ignores it, and all motorola phones that I am aware of do also. I think it's possible to make it solid with root access and "direct mode" of the app may allow solid if rooted as we bypass the android dev kit and interact with the hardware directly through unix.

Interesting thing; my old Droid X2 on Froyo would change LED speed just fine. My newly acquired replacement X2 on Gingerbread won't control the LED speed.

 

[andrewpmoore]

Interesting thing; my old Droid X2 on Froyo would change LED speed just fine. My newly acquired replacement X2 on Gingerbread won't control the LED speed.

That's interesting but doesn't surprise me, support for leds in gingerbread is terrible, even the simplest test case as documented on androids official docs doesn't work in gingerbread, you have to go to some lengths to get any light at all!

 

[maggieo]

Hey Andrew - I'm over here! I can't figure out how to pm you.. please help! I want to buy this app.. do I want the "lite" or not? Is the "lite" just the free version? Also - based on something I read somewhere days ago that I forget - should I be buying this from the market or some other way? Please pm me - if you can.. also - why don't I get notifications when people write in posts I have posted in? I see "go advanced" below, maybe that's it.. Anyway, I have some time this w/end to set up this app, but I want to be sure I get the right app from the right place! Thanks a million!

 

[Ands]

My Atrix doesn't change to more than 3 colors. I set my gmail to green and it comes as orangish yellow. I could only see purple, yellow, pink color show up.

 

[bucks13]

Just a quick update on the sleep function, it seems to be working now with on of the latest updates. No more flashing light in the middle of the night.

My Atrix doesn't change to more than 3 colors. I set my gmail to green and it comes as orangish yellow. I could only see purple, yellow, pink color show up.

Not sure why, I'm able to get red, blue, white, teal, orange and white. Maybe more, but that's all I have set right now.

 

[andrewpmoore]

Just a quick update on the sleep function, it seems to be working now with on of the latest updates. No more flashing light in the middle of the night.



Not sure why, I'm able to get red, blue, white, teal, orange and white. Maybe more, but that's all I have set right now.

It could be a hardware problem. I've known of a couple of motorola phones where 1 or the 3 leds hasn't worked limiting the actual colors you get.

Maybe try the led color tester app by coolbeans from the market and see if you can work out if red, green or blue may not be working.
You'll have to uninstall LightFlow first to use the tester app, but can backup and restore your settings first.