LED behaviour differences between android 4.4 - 5.0 and 5.1

Android has always been on a rapid release cycle and still continues to be which means that across different versions the way your phone or tablet work may vary several times over a short period of time.

One area that has particularly caused issues for Light Flow users is when the LED displays.

Since the earliest versions of Android up until android 4.4 the led would be on if raised by an application as long as the screen is off. As soon as the screen is on the LED shuts off. There's no options to alter this behavior without root access on the phone and even then it's only possible if your ROM or lightflow can directly control the LED drivers bypassing Android.

Android 5.0 brought in an additional time that the led doesn't show. If the phone is in "None" or "Mute" sound mode (varies depending on the manufacturer to the name used) the LED will also not show. For a lot of people this has caused quite a bit of grief as they rely on the LED more when in silent mode to be aware of notifications.

Luckily Android 5.1 reverted this change so now the LED will show again when the phone is muted. If your phone is currently still on Android 5.0 then hopefully your manufacturer will push out an update soon to bring back the old behavior.

 
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