S21 Notifications when not using phone

you can have the aod (always on dislplay) to show your notifications. no need to touch the screen.

 

The recent Samsungs (and indeed most recent phones) don't actually have a notification LED, which is why you can't find the option.

I've seen people talk about "edge notifications", though as the S21 doesn't have the curved edges I don't know how that works. Best might be to wait for a Samsung owner to comment on that.

If the Always On Display is like my Pixel's there will be a little icon under the clock if you miss something. I personally find it less visible and less useful than the old LED, so for me this was a backward step. But then I still have an LED, so turned my AOD off after a couple of weeks and never missed it at all.

 

the s21 has edge lighting as far as i know. but the edge lighting only notifies you once. it will not repeat or anything like that. it is a pretty cool effect though.

 

Ah, it's not persistent. So probably doesn't help in this case.

I'm increasingly thinking that I just need an old phone (like 5-8 years old) with a more modern processor and current levels of storage. I find current phones too big, have stupid designs like glass backs, with useful features removed (notification LEDs, headphone jacks) and nothing useful replacing them. I guess I must be showing my age - maybe it's time I bought a little Nokia dumbphone and retired to sit on the porch complaining about how things used to be better?