Phone Help - LG G4 and G5

Light Flow should work well with the LG G4 and G5

You must go into your phone settings, display, leds and make sure only "Downloaded apps" is enabled.

Also note that the flash speed of "Always On" doesn't work on the G4. This is due to an LED driver limitation. You can get pretty close to an always on LED by going into Light Flow and setting up a custom flash rate of 50000,1

Phone Help - Samsung S6/S6 edge

Compatibility

Light Flow should work on the S6 and S6 edge.

The following phone settings are required:

Light Flow Legacy is recommended for better compatibility.


Android 7 users
The workarounds for Android 6 are not required in android 7, but you may have to clear the apps data if your phone upgrades from 6 to 7.

Go into your phone settings
  • applications
  • application manager
  • Select "Light Flow"
  • Storage
  • Clear data
This will reset the app and should fix issues that some users may be having after the upgrade.

Note you shouldn't need any of the samsung workaround options on in android 7 



Android 6 users
Light Flow, when prompted, make sure you switch the following:
  •  Notification Access (In your phone settings, Lock screen and security->Other security settings->Notification access if Light Flow doesn't prompt)
  • Accessibility  (In your phone settings, Accessibility if Light Flow doesn't prompt)
  • Samsung workaround. When it's enabled the yellow box will show "disable workaround" as it'll currently be enabled.
If you have any apps which allow controlling the LED in their settings, make sure you switch that option off. e.g. Facebook, whatsapp, twitter, Skype all have settings that can be switched off.

Some users are reporting that certain apps will cause the LED to still turn blue. The following are notifications that may cause this, but there may be more

  • SMS
  • Missed calls
  • Email (samsung's email app)
  • Gmail
  • Hangouts
If you get a blue led override the correct led for these then so far the only option seems to be in lightflow to set the "switch screen on" option for these notifications. You can set a small screen on time such as 0.3 seconds which seems to fix the issue.


Side effects of the samsung workaround


Due to the workaround there Are A Few Side-Effects For Light Flow Controlling Apps Where The Native App Is Raising A Notification.

  • You may get duplicate vibrations and sound if using the native app to control them instead of Light Flow
  • If the notification is expandable and has buttons then if the button doesn't launch the app then the notification will persist. For example Gmail shows an "Archive" and "Reply" button. If you press "Archive" the archive process will happen but the notification will still persist. Just swipe away to clear it. For the "Reply" button, when it's pressed enters Gmail to reply and therefore clears the notification automatically. 
  • If an app can normally remotely clear a notification (for example when you view a Gmail on another device) this notification won't automatically clear.
Note that all these side-effects only happen for apps without the option to switch the led off that would normally show one.

Are you still seeing a blue led when you've selected another color?

This will usually when system/stock apps raise a notification such as the messenger app, missed calls etc. Some users have reported that going into lightflow for these notifications and enabling the "Switch screen on" option helps ensure the LED ends up the correct color.

Why do Messenger notifications not always show?

The samsung sms app works a little differently to most other messaging apps.
Try going into light flow, notification settings, SMS and on the first tab set the last 4 options to

  • Off
  • On
  • Off
  • On

as shown in the screenshot above and see if that helps. Note that with these settings contact specific sms notifications will not trigger. If you want them to we'd recommend using a different messeging app such as EvolveSMS which allows you to switch off the LED control in their app.




Android 5.1.1 users
Details about controlling the LED on the S6 and S6 Edge on android 5.1.1 can be found here: http://www.reactle.com/2015/07/samsungled.html


Previous versions of Android should just work as long as you go into your phone settings, sounds and notification and enable the LED option at the bottom of the list.

If it doesn't work but you've already got this on, try switch it off and back on again and then reboot the phone and see if that helps as I've known in the past the switch to show as the incorrect state.


Samsung devices running Android 5.1.1 upwards

Please note that the below document is applicable to version 3.55.2 of Light Flow and above.

Quick summary of settings required

  • Make sure "Led indicator" is on in your phone settings, sounds and notifications
  • Enable Notification Access and Accessibility when prompted in Light Flow
  • Enable the Samsung workaround when prompted
  • Switch off the notification led option in apps which allow it such as Facebook, twitter, Whatsapp in their app settings
  • If using SMS/Messenger go into lightflow, notification settings, sms and on the first tab set the last 4 options to:
    - off
    - on
    - off
    - on
  • Read below for more details

Intro

When Samsung pushed out 5.1.1 to their phones they made a change to how their LED control works. Previously it worked like other Android phones, but now it's non-standard there seems little logic to how it's controlled.

I'd been getting reports of the LED not working and just flashing blue so decided to buy an S6 edge to specifically look into it.

It took a couple of weeks of writing sample apps try and get any understanding of how the control was working, but eventually I worked out a pattern.

One part of the issue is regaining control of the LED once it's turned blue and I'd had to do similar on the S3 for the USA version when initially released so I knew of a method that I thought should work. Sadly since I'd last used that, android permissions have changed around a lot and now only system apps could use this trick. I then spent a week trying several different ideas which all lead to dead-ends on gaining control.

Another week of late nights and I worked out a method to gain control which I've now implemented into Light Flow


Recommended settings

Rooted users
Firstly, if you've got root access on your phone, then that's the simplest.
Go into Light Flow, settings->device settings and root
And enable:
  • root mode
  • Samsung root mode 
Then go into your phone settings, sounds and notifications and switch off "Led indicator".

Standard users
If your phone is not rooted, then the following settings are required:

  • Notification Access must be enabled when prompted in the app to enable it.
  • Accessibility must be enabled when promoted by the app
  • "Enable workaround" must also be enabled.
Any apps that have the option to display a notification LED in them should be set to off.
Apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Snapchat and twitter all have this option. This allows Light Flow to keep control of the LED.

Some apps don't have this option but there are similar apps that can be used instead which have the option.
  • For example, Gmail doesn't have the option by "Inbox by Gmail" does.
  • Messenger doesn't have the option but many 3rd party texting apps do.
For apps where there's no alternate app with more control or where you don't want to change app Light Flow will control the LED for them, but it'll have a few side-effects on the actual notifications which are listed below.

Side-effects of the workaround

There are a few side-effects for Light Flow controlling apps where the native app is raising a notification.
  • You may get duplicate vibrations and sound if using the native app to control them instead of Light Flow
  • Some apps may just show a "star" in the notification bar when the notification arrives. See below to help with this issue if running Android 5.1.1. With Android 6.0 upwards it's now possible to automatically set the correct icon (Light Flow version 3.61.12 upwards)
  • If the notification is expandable and has buttons then if the button doesn't launch the app then the notification will persist. For example Gmail shows an "Archive" and "Reply" button. If you press "Archive" the archive process will happen but the notification will still persist. Just swipe away to clear it. For the "Reply" button, when it's pressed enters Gmail to reply and therefore clears the notification automatically.
  • If an app can normally remotely clear a notification (for example when you view a Gmail on another device) this notification won't automatically clear.
Note that all these side-effects only happen for apps without the option to switch the led off that would normally show one.

Help changing the "Star" notification into a real one

The workaround to keep control of the notifications is quite complex and there's no automatic way to change this to the real icon as a change needs to be made to Light Flow for each notification type if running Android 5.1.1
Getting the icons required for this for several thousand apps would be far too time consuming, but you can help.

If there's an app that shows you a "star" where you'd normally see the real icon, Light Flow will have automatically created a backup of that icon and placed it into a /lightflow/app_icons directory.

If you email the files in this directory to support@reactle.com then I'll add them into the next release.

Future plans

I plan to keep looking into different ways to get things working with fewer side-effects and also to chase Samsung regarding their inconsistent approach to LED control that they have introduced.



 
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