[blackshark]

I know this has been asked before but the answers have been just vague enough that I didn't get the answer I was looking for.
Having just left the fold for a samsung I'm considering returning, but only if I have have my contact notifications back. Or is this not possible with android no matter what platform?

I want to be able to have each contact have its own color and have that color blink the always available LED so I know who is emailing, or texting from across the room and the phone is sleeping.
I am aware the LED is smaller than on my outgoing Classic.

In other posts it implies that only apps as a whole can send a color to the LED. Knowing I have an email doesn't do my much good. I need to know when specific emails come in. Also is there still a general notification (the red led) for when any email or text comes in?

Thanks

[the_boon]

I know this has been asked before but the answers have been just vague enough that I didn't get the answer I was looking for.
Having just left the fold for a samsung I'm considering returning, but only if I have have my contact notifications back. Or is this not possible with android no matter what platform?

I want to be able to have each contact have its own color and have that color blink the always available LED so I know who is emailing, or texting from across the room and the phone is sleeping.
I am aware the LED is smaller than on my outgoing Classic.

In other posts it implies that only apps as a whole can send a color to the LED. Knowing I have an email doesn't do my much good. I need to know when specific emails come in. Also is there still a general notification (the red led) for when any email or text comes in?

Thanks

On Android in general, you cannot assign a LED color to an individual contact, aside from the Hub (or Inbox as they call it now) where you can select different colors for different e-mail accounts but that's pretty much it if I'm not mistaken.

There is, however, an app called Light Flow Legacy that lets you choose the LED color for a particular app

[Platinum_2]

Just buy LED Blinker Pro and be done with it. I have it on my Pixel 3a and it is superior to the red BlackBerry micro blinkie.

[the_boon]

Just buy LED Blinker Pro and be done with it. I have it on my Pixel 3a and it is superior to the red BlackBerry micro blinkie.

Just tried it on my Pixel 3 and it didn't work even though I enabled all the permissions

[Platinum_2]

Just tried it on my Pixel 3 and it didn't work even though I enabled all the permissions

Make sure the box next to "LED Blinker activated" is checked. This is under "Common Settings." You also need to make sure the "Overwrite system LED" box is checked.

Under the "Screen LED" menu, check "Screen LED" box. Lastly, in your device settings, ambient display must be "on"

[blackshark]

Led Blinker pro came close but would only do the top most notification from a list (which seems to be just a default Email app notification). It also wouldn't let me choose a color for a specific contact (a bug obviously) so I got it to sort of work by finding keywords in incoming emails. But again would only trigger on the first one in the list.
Also tried Light Flow and LED me Know and Light Manager. Not even a blip with those.
I'd be happy enough with assigning specific blink colors to particular senders that show in my hub. Is that possible? Given I'm not asking for anything we haven't had in the past, I'm kinda surprised that this feature died with a whimper. I've been pulling my hair out trying to resurrect it.
Simply put, I don't want to have to turn on (or pick up) my phone to know that "contact A" has sent me an email ,or "contact B" has sent me a text. I want to give these certain contacts priority even then the phone is sleeping (and not in a priority group, but each individual contact in that priority cluster gets a unique blink) when an email or text comes in.
Doable on the Key 2?

[Platinum_2]

Led Blinker pro came close but would only do the top most notification from a list (which seems to be just a default Email app notification). It also wouldn't let me choose a color for a specific contact (a bug obviously) so I got it to sort of work by finding keywords in incoming emails. But again would only trigger on the first one in the list.
Also tried Light Flow and LED me Know and Light Manager. Not even a blip with those.
I'd be happy enough with assigning specific blink colors to particular senders that show in my hub. Is that possible? Given I'm not asking for anything we haven't had in the past, I'm kinda surprised that this feature died with a whimper. I've been pulling my hair out trying to resurrect it.
Simply put, I don't want to have to turn on (or pick up) my phone to know that "contact A" has sent me an email ,or "contact B" has sent me a text. I want to give these certain contacts priority even then the phone is sleeping (and not in a priority group, but each individual contact in that priority cluster gets a unique blink) when an email or text comes in.
Doable on the Key 2?

Interesting that you had those problems with LED Blinker Pro. I am able to assign notification colors or icons at the contact level with no incident. It will also display each notification as they come in, but you need to set it to do that, otherwise I think it selects from the list of notifications.

The developer is fairly responsive and will help you work through any issues. I like that I can assign icons instead of blinking lights. For example, when a notification comes from BlackBerry hub, the hub icon flashes on the ambient display screen.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Is that possible? Given I'm not asking for anything we haven't had in the past, I'm kinda surprised that this feature died with a whimper. I've been pulling my hair out trying to resurrect it.
Simply put, I don't want to have to turn on (or pick up) my phone to know that "contact A" has sent me an email ,or "contact B" has sent me a text. I want to give these certain contacts priority even then the phone is sleeping (and not in a priority group, but each individual contact in that priority cluster gets a unique blink) when an email or text comes in.
Doable on the Key 2?

No.

You're asking for the kind of feature that you might find on a device where emails and text messages were not only the highest priority, but among the ONLY priorities. In other words, something like BBOS, that did email and texting very well, but didn't do a heck of a lot else.

It isn't 2008 anymore, and those kinds of features are simply not a priority today. In addition, people are getting notifications from lots and lots of additional sources other than emails and text messages, and such a feature would have to be integrated and supported by all of them to be useful - and, again, this kind of feature just isn't a priority. We've moved on from LED status lights to always-on OLED screens (where a portion of the screen can turn on and show a notification with more detail, while still using very little battery) and smartwatches and other methods of notifications. The majority of the people prefer this over having to rely on customizing the flashing of an LED and having to remember which color and pattern means what, so that feature did indeed die with nary a whimper, having been replaced with other options that most people prefer. And given the complexity of smartphones and the necessity to remain compatible across a huge range of companies, developers, and manufacturers, the OS makers are going to do what best serves the majority, even at the expense of the minority.

You'll have to find a way to adapt.

[the_boon]

No.

You're asking for the kind of feature that you might find on a device where emails and text messages were not only the highest priority, but among the ONLY priorities. In other words, something like BBOS, that did email and texting very well, but didn't do a heck of a lot else.

It isn't 2008 anymore, and those kinds of features are simply not a priority today. In addition, people are getting notifications from lots and lots of additional sources other than emails and text messages, and such a feature would have to be integrated and supported by all of them to be useful - and, again, this kind of feature just isn't a priority. We've moved on from LED status lights to always-on OLED screens (where a portion of the screen can turn on and show a notification with more detail, while still using very little battery) and smartwatches and other methods of notifications. The majority of the people prefer this over having to rely on customizing the flashing of an LED and having to remember which color and pattern means what, so that feature did indeed die with nary a whimper, having been replaced with other options that most people prefer. And given the complexity of smartphones and the necessity to remain compatible across a huge range of companies, developers, and manufacturers, the OS makers are going to do what best serves the majority, even at the expense of the minority.

You'll have to find a way to adapt.

But a LED is SO cheap and easy to implement that I see no reason NOT to put one.

And again Always ON display is NOT a substitute for the LED, and as far as battery consumption, they're not even in the same ballpark.
AOD also puts unnecessary wear on the pixels of the display.

People keep saying "just adapt" but it's pretty annoying those times that the new tech trends simply aren't as efficient as the ones before them.

[Troy Tiscareno]

But a LED is SO cheap and easy to implement that I see no reason NOT to put one.

It's cheap and easy to "implement" just the way BBMo did, sure, but as you see, the implementation is simple and very limited. Getting all of the other 3rd-party developers to integrate support for that LED, in all the various ways that different people would prefer, is a far more complicated and therefore expensive task. And most phones don't even have an LED, so you'd be asking those developers to do a lot of work that very few could take advantage of.

And again Always ON display is NOT a substitute for the LED, and as far as battery consumption, they're not even in the same ballpark.
AOD also puts unnecessary wear on the pixels of the display.

For most people, it's a far superior replacement, and screen wear really isn't a factor given the relatively short lifespans of smartphones. Plus, those kind of notifications can give a lot of information in a way that people can easily understand. Most people don't want to have to remember that 5 green blinks means Bob sending some message on Twitter and 8 red blinks is Stan on Facebook. Again, most people are far beyond just email and text messages.

People keep saying "just adapt" but it's pretty annoying those times that the new tech trends simply aren't as efficient as the ones before them.

They're more efficient for most people and for how smartphones are used in 2019. You're trying to hold on to how you used much more limited smartphones in 2009. I get that you're more comfortable with what you know, but smartphone manufactures and app developers can't afford to support people who don't want to move along with current progress. Whatever is the mainstream is always what's going to "win".

[the_boon]

It's cheap and easy to "implement" just the way BBMo did, sure, but as you see, the implementation is simple and very limited. Getting all of the other 3rd-party developers to integrate support for that LED, in all the various ways that different people would prefer, is a far more complicated and therefore expensive task. And most phones don't even have an LED, so you'd be asking those developers to do a lot of work that very few could take advantage of.



For most people, it's a far superior replacement, and screen wear really isn't a factor given the relatively short lifespans of smartphones. Plus, those kind of notifications can give a lot of information in a way that people can easily understand. Most people don't want to have to remember that 5 green blinks means Bob sending some message on Twitter and 8 red blinks is Stan on Facebook. Again, most people are far beyond just email and text messages.



They're more efficient for most people and for how smartphones are used in 2019. You're trying to hold on to how you used much more limited smartphones in 2009. I get that you're more comfortable with what you know, but smartphone manufactures and app developers can't afford to support people who don't want to move along with current progress. Whatever is the mainstream is always what's going to "win".

It's not all about 2009 vs 2019, it is possible that there are things which were superior in one time period compared to another.
For me, the LED is one of those things.

Let me be clear, I do not wish for the future of smartphones to be BBOS type devices with tiny 3.5" plastic displays.
But there were great features and/or hardware attributes of back then which became extinct and it's really too bad.

How about bridging the old with the new?

[Troy Tiscareno]

How about bridging the old with the new?

Again, it would be POSSIBLE, just not economically feasible. Too few people want what you want and the industry isn't going to spend the money to provide it when it's such a low priority for most users. In business, those kinds of decisions are made all the time, and, yes, some things get left behind.

[blackshark]

Its not so much that I can't move on, it's that, as mentioned. there are so many other apps and incoming noise that vie for our attention now, I'd like to filter out what really matters - a few specific business contacts that I need to have float above the noise, especially when the screen is off and the phone is sitting across the room. I'm finding more and more people are suffering from too many distractions, to the point they can't even read beyond the few words that show up in the email preview. Sure the OS10 units couldn't really do much compared to a Pixel 3, but that doesn't mean doing this one simple thing should be left behind (Cars still have steering wheels after all this time even though we can now run our lives from within them).

As for LED vs AOD, I'm ok with either. Of course LED makes more sense and is insignificant in cost to add and incorporate in phone design (Samsung spent how much? cutting out a hole in the front glass and touch grid to allow a camera to poke through - heck, with an OLED you could mount the LED behind the whole thing and just let it shine through, no extra engineering required!)

I have been going back and forth with the developer of Led Blinker Pro trying to find a workaround (keywords based on incoming contacts names is as close as I've gotten). Other posters are correct; he's very responsive, his English is excellent (given he's in Germany) so it's been a great experience. He says the issue is with Google (and I've heard this before). They have (as of Pie) prevented contact-level matching, except on apps like Signal and Telegraph (for some reason).

I'm still unclear if this is doable on the Key 2 - some posters report success and others don't and it always seems to require a third party app - which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. If BB still has a HUB (which no other system has) why can't it have some of that functionality too. It doesn't detract from any of the current bells and whistle distractors.

It may be moot anyway - The Key2 is on Oreo (I believe) which may be prior to Google bringing the hammer down on this feature. An upgrade to the hopefully imminent Pie upgrade may kill that altogether (but then again with the contact matching being encapsulated in the HUB perhaps it's safe hiding in there). And with Pie being old in the tooth by phone standards and Q around the corner (with no probable upgrade path for any BB), am I just adding grief by not keeping up with the pack?

Gone are the days of "hardware is forever" because software could change and bring you up to date. Now Android doesn't seem to be compatible with hardware made only 2 versions old. I hope the rare earth metals and the helium holds out because we're burning through them at a rate that mimics our casual abandon of plastic recycling. The lack of forethought is probably caused by all the distractions designed-in. Some of us want to be more productive. And keeping a tool that lets this take place costs no one their distractions.

[blackshark]

Well I've returned to the fold.

There were just too many truly dumb things about the S10/ Samsung's android skin that I couldn't get past. So I returned it and got the Key 2. I even paid more for it, that's how bad my experience was. Sure, if you're going to be a social media star or will spend most of the day glued to the phone deep in your social network, there's a lot to like in the S10. But if you want a serious, productive, efficient phone (read: business communication device), then head back to BB. But get a thick skin because there will be no end of laughter when you unholster it.

My biggest issue of course was the keyboard (or lack there of). I tried all sorts of third party software apps on the S10 but in the end my eyes were glued to the keyboard instead of on what I was typing, as tried not to cover two keys with a thumb the size of three, or tried to hit the right key when there is no physical reference point (there's a reason membrane keyboards are not the standard in desktop computing - no tactile reference when you are looking at the screen) - but that comes down to personal preference and whatever makes you more productive. I just dreaded having to type on the S10. I now see why incoming messages from people with touch keyboards are loaded with errors, missing words, misspelled words and priceless autocorrect gut-busters.

As for the reason for this thread: the notification lights. I got pretty close on the S10 with the LED blinker pro app, but couldn't quite get all the way with it. It did mean the screen had to be "on" all the time to show the notifications as pseudo LEDs, but that probably wouldn't have put too big a dent in the battery, especially if you are already running in AOD. And you could stack the colored dots to show ALL the special notifications not just the most recent. So pluses there for sure.

But on the new Key 2 I've gotten it working the way it used to on my Classic (albeit with the help of Led Blinker Pro (beta). And, with the actual hardware LED!. (it will also work as an on-screen dot or multiple dots but the screen seems to need a higher base level of energy to work than the samsung so that may burn more juice than the same routine on the S10 - the key 2 screen actually feels like a backlit LCD when you do this). Will that LED control survive into Pie? Who knows. But it took just a few hours to get the whole phone set up from blank (with no transfer of data from the old phone), and with all the apps I'm used to. Whereas on the Samsung, it took about 4 full time days of frustration to get to where I finally gave up.

A few notes on the LED set up: The LED on the blackberry has only ever been able to do red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow and white. So that means that's all LED Blinker can do too when talking to the hardware LED. If you ask for purple you will get one of the above. You should be able to do orange and turquoise and purple (as they are just mixes of the secondaries and primaries) but perhaps I haven't found the right RGB mix yet.
You can't match by contact either (by the way this is a limitation forced on us by Google - thanks for that big G). You have to use a keyword from the incoming message notification. Just note what the phone produces as the "name" of the incoming message in the notifications and you can use a subset of that string as text to match in the LED Blinker software.

Finally, the hub is what took me over the edge. Why can't I determine what streams of messaging come into my HUB? Because there is no such thing on the S10. I can't imagine having to check multiple sources for messages especially when information between messaging types is often informationaly related. I can now see it all in one spot again.

So far the only lacking feature on the BB I can see is the lack of a Silent custom sound for each contact (by the way, the contact "rings" are hidden up in the 3dot menu top right of the contact's page.)

Oh ya, and I have my forward delete back again. Boy was I missing that!

And one gripe: After all these decades, why did the Back and Recent buttons on the tool belt get swapped in their positions? Even Samsung has it as it's always been. I know it's not actual BB hardware but come on guys, pay attention, otherwise your company will go down the... ah, I get it now.

I may have to do this all again in 2 or 3 years when the Key 3 fails to appear or the current OS is no longer compatible or when google tells us what we can and can't do, but perhaps by then I'll have the time to just Tony Stark my own phone.

[the_boon]

Well I've returned to the fold.

There were just too many truly dumb things about the S10/ Samsung's android skin that I couldn't get past. So I returned it and got the Key 2. I even paid more for it, that's how bad my experience was. Sure, if you're going to be a social media star or will spend most of the day glued to the phone deep in your social network, there's a lot to like in the S10. But if you want a serious, productive, efficient phone (read: business communication device), then head back to BB. But get a thick skin because there will be no end of laughter when you unholster it.

My biggest issue of course was the keyboard (or lack there of). I tried all sorts of third party software apps on the S10 but in the end my eyes were glued to the keyboard instead of on what I was typing, as tried not to cover two keys with a thumb the size of three, or tried to hit the right key when there is no physical reference point (there's a reason membrane keyboards are not the standard in desktop computing - no tactile reference when you are looking at the screen) - but that comes down to personal preference and whatever makes you more productive. I just dreaded having to type on the S10. I now see why incoming messages from people with touch keyboards are loaded with errors, missing words, misspelled words and priceless autocorrect gut-busters.

As for the reason for this thread: the notification lights. I got pretty close on the S10 with the LED blinker pro app, but couldn't quite get all the way with it. It did mean the screen had to be "on" all the time to show the notifications as pseudo LEDs, but that probably wouldn't have put too big a dent in the battery, especially if you are already running in AOD. And you could stack the colored dots to show ALL the special notifications not just the most recent. So pluses there for sure.

But on the new Key 2 I've gotten it working the way it used to on my Classic (albeit with the help of Led Blinker Pro (beta). And, with the actual hardware LED!. (it will also work as an on-screen dot or multiple dots but the screen seems to need a higher base level of energy to work than the samsung so that may burn more juice than the same routine on the S10 - the key 2 screen actually feels like a backlit LCD when you do this). Will that LED control survive into Pie? Who knows. But it took just a few hours to get the whole phone set up from blank (with no transfer of data from the old phone), and with all the apps I'm used to. Whereas on the Samsung, it took about 4 full time days of frustration to get to where I finally gave up.

A few notes on the LED set up: The LED on the blackberry has only ever been able to do red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow and white. So that means that's all LED Blinker can do too when talking to the hardware LED. If you ask for purple you will get one of the above. You should be able to do orange and turquoise and purple (as they are just mixes of the secondaries and primaries) but perhaps I haven't found the right RGB mix yet.
You can't match by contact either (by the way this is a limitation forced on us by Google - thanks for that big G). You have to use a keyword from the incoming message notification. Just note what the phone produces as the "name" of the incoming message in the notifications and you can use a subset of that string as text to match in the LED Blinker software.

Finally, the hub is what took me over the edge. Why can't I determine what streams of messaging come into my HUB? Because there is no such thing on the S10. I can't imagine having to check multiple sources for messages especially when information between messaging types is often informationaly related. I can now see it all in one spot again.

So far the only lacking feature on the BB I can see is the lack of a Silent custom sound for each contact (by the way, the contact "rings" are hidden up in the 3dot menu top right of the contact's page.)

Oh ya, and I have my forward delete back again. Boy was I missing that!

And one gripe: After all these decades, why did the Back and Recent buttons on the tool belt get swapped in their positions? Even Samsung has it as it's always been. I know it's not actual BB hardware but come on guys, pay attention, otherwise your company will go down the... ah, I get it now.

I may have to do this all again in 2 or 3 years when the Key 3 fails to appear or the current OS is no longer compatible or when google tells us what we can and can't do, but perhaps by then I'll have the time to just Tony Stark my own phone.

First of all, I know you typed this on your KEY2 and not on glass.

Second, what's your KEY2's build date?

[blackshark]

Just a follow-up on the "sleeping" screen brightness mentioned above. I was told that it was an OLED on the Key2. Not so much. LCD all the way. So that's why the base black wasn't great when the pseudo LED dots showed up and the screen was "off". On the OLED of the S10, only the pixels needed to be energized suck on the battery, but on the Key 2 the entire backlight has to show up for anything to be seen on the screen no matter how small, and with the polarizers in the screen not being totally opaque you can just make out the faint glow as a dark gray background. So I wouldn't recommend using the onscreen dots on the KEY2 as it will be the same as your screen being on 100% of the time.

On the plus side, that means that the LCD screen will be brighter out of doors unlike an OLED - if I'd known that before, it would have been the tipping factor on the initial decision between the KEY2 and the Samsung.

[Ray III]

It's cheap and easy to "implement" just the way BBMo did, sure, but as you see, the implementation is simple and very limited. Getting all of the other 3rd-party developers to integrate support for that LED, in all the various ways that different people would prefer, is a far more complicated and therefore expensive task. And most phones don't even have an LED, so you'd be asking those developers to do a lot of work that very few could take advantage of.



For most people, it's a far superior replacement, and screen wear really isn't a factor given the relatively short lifespans of smartphones. Plus, those kind of notifications can give a lot of information in a way that people can easily understand. Most people don't want to have to remember that 5 green blinks means Bob sending some message on Twitter and 8 red blinks is Stan on Facebook. Again, most people are far beyond just email and text messages.



They're more efficient for most people and for how smartphones are used in 2019. You're trying to hold on to how you used much more limited smartphones in 2009. I get that you're more comfortable with what you know, but smartphone manufactures and app developers can't afford to support people who don't want to move along with current progress. Whatever is the mainstream is always what's going to "win".

Ok, let's try to keep this simple.

On an Android phone, how can I visually tell that my wife has sent me a text message while the phone is across the room or without directly looking at it while driving?

[Yamahammer]

Ok, let's try to keep this simple.

On an Android phone, how can I visually tell that my wife has sent me a text message while the phone is across the room or without directly looking at it while driving?

Delete all of your other contacts?

[Troy Tiscareno]

Ok, let's try to keep this simple.

On an Android phone, how can I visually tell that my wife has sent me a text message while the phone is across the room or without directly looking at it while driving?

With stock software, you can't do exactly that. You can do other things - I'm sure there's a third party app that would give you some other options, and you can do custom ringtones, and in many cars you can have text messages read to you, etc. But the vast majority of people are satisfied with the current options, and there's little demand for what you want. Most people didn't use the notification LED, which is why it went away. I realize that you DID use it, but any huge company is going to cater to their majority customers, rather than the small niches.

BB only had that feature because it was originally designed and built as a business phone (with a major lack of consumer features and functions), and today, there's no such thing as a business phone - there's just a phone that has to serve everyone, and, in some cases, that means the majority rather than everyone.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Ok, let's try to keep this simple.

On an Android phone, how can I visually tell that my wife has sent me a text message while the phone is across the room or without directly looking at it while driving?

Go get a smartwatch...

[Ben xfg]

Ok, let's try to keep this simple.

On an Android phone, how can I visually tell that my wife has sent me a text message while the phone is across the room or without directly looking at it while driving?

There's apps that will let you do useful things with your screen. An example might be AOD Notify.

[Ray III]

There's apps that will let you do useful things with your screen. An example might be AOD Notify.

Google refuses to let me install it on this phone. I have tried LED Blinker Pro but no contact notifications. Either way they don't operate the existing LED.

[Ray III]

Delete all of your other contacts?

Seems to be the simplest solution for Android.

[Ben xfg]

Google refuses to let me install it on this phone. I have tried LED Blinker Pro but no contact notifications. Either way they don't operate the existing LED.

Most phones don't even have the LED hardware anymore, so the apps use the screen in various ways.