[Q] LED Notification light defective?? - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

The other day I noticed that my once stock white colored notification LED was acting strangely. It now is multicolored and seems to have a slight flicker when it goes off. I went through Samsung US support steps, removed apps, then full factory reset. Still same problem. I installed Light Flow and tested all colors. Most work but still with a bit of a flicker. White is not working. It displays in three colors, yellow pink and green/blue? I suppose my LED has broken. Has this happened to anyone else? Is there a solution? Samsung US will not support the repair as it is an international GSM phone.
Thank you.

casbar12 said:
The other day I noticed that my once stock white colored notification LED was acting strangely. It now is multicolored and seems to have a slight flicker when it goes off. I went through Samsung US support steps, removed apps, then full factory reset. Still same problem. I installed Light Flow and tested all colors. Most work but still with a bit of a flicker. White is not working. It displays in three colors, yellow pink and green/blue? I suppose my LED has broken. Has this happened to anyone else? Is there a solution? Samsung US will not support the repair as it is an international GSM phone.
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah white isn't really white, its a combination of three colors. Its normal.. no biggie
Well mine is also like that..
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

I have had my phone since January and it was always a white notification. My old Nexus One was also always a plain white notification. I am pretty sure thats what stock Android intends it to be. The multicolored just started. Either way Light Flow when set to White should display a white notification but it cannot. I am almost certain my LED is defective. Anyone else?

Ahmato27 said:
Yeah white isn't really white, its a combination of three colors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As proved by Newton:
White light is the effect of combining the visible colors of light in suitable proportions (the same present in solar light).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Ok, so... no help here. Thanks anyway, guys.
I sure wish my LED could be fixed. <head down>

Everything you describe is normal.
You probably just never noticed it before.

I actually did notice it and that is why I have posted here. The notification light is supposed to be white. Not multicolored. I know this phone like the back of my hand. The led has changed.

Mine has been like exactly what you've described on both Nexus' that I've owned.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

It's a tri-colored LED (red, green, blue).
It displays different colors by mixing those 3 primary colors.
To get white, it mixes all 3.
The 3 LED's aren't close enough together, so around the edges you'll see the individual colors, but in the center it will appear white.
At certain distances/angles/lighting conditions, it can appear almost fully white.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDrYDjXThLc
If you insist that it was pure white before, then somehow you had a white LED and it has transformed into a RGB LED.
I'm pretty sure no Galaxy Nexus's were shipped with a white LED, and certainly not ones that can transform.

AFAIK
The notification LED at the bottom of the phone has always been a 3 color LED. Red, green and blue. To get white it turns on all 3. Other colors are variations on a theme.

Thank you, terryhau.
My notification light does not look like it does in that video. It is now mostly pink with a green hue no the bottom portion and a purple/blue color in the top left hand portion. It DID NOT used to be like this.
I guess I need to post a pic somehow.

Maybe something like an update or .apk has changed the behavior of the LEDs like reduced the output which would explain why you now see all 3 colors instead of white.

Wilsonium said:
Maybe something like an update or .apk has changed the behavior of the LEDs like reduced the output which would explain why you now see all 3 colors instead of white.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did a full factory reset hoping that may be the case. No luck. This hasn't happened to anyone else?

casbar12 said:
Thank you, terryhau.
My notification light does not look like it does in that video. It is now mostly pink with a green hue no the bottom portion and a purple/blue color in the top left hand portion. It DID NOT used to be like this.
I guess I need to post a pic somehow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The video shows that it is not pure white, but a mixture of colors. Kind of hard to see because of the bad camera.

terryhau said:
The video shows that it is not pure white, but a mixture of colors. Kind of hard to see because of the bad camera.
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Click to collapse
Yes. And in the video it shows what my led looked like about three days ago. It no longer displays that way. Now the three colors are glaringly obvious with a bit of a flicker as it fades out.

I am having the same issue. I have a galaxy nexus from sprint and the play store. the sprint one is perfect. all colors requiring a mix of colors show perfectly like pink, magenta, lime etc. However the play one does not. its almost like its off center so with lime you will see a bit of green and then orange on one side. Pink is slightly pink on one section then almost white every where else. Purple is purple and then has a nice section of blue on one edge.
So my question is those who have replaced your screen is the led attached to it or is it part of the speaker daughter board?

My led is darned close to white (accepting Newton's physical laws etc.). I'm thinking that if yours has changed then perhaps it's damaged, but perhaps your rom settings have (been) changed and your notification colour is now set differently (by default). What rom are you using?
I'm using CM9, which nominally allows me to have notifications in different colours for different apps. I find when I pick colours from the chooser, though I'm meant to have complete control over the colour, in reality I can get white, red, blue, green, and different rotations of rainbows.
Clarification: when I say I can get 'red, blue, and green', I mean properly: I get a solid circle of whichever one of those colours I'm aiming for. But anything else (e.g. yellow, orange, cyan, magenta, lilac, etc.) will be a the chosen colour in a small part of the circle, and an array of all the other colours elsewhere in the rest of the circle.

i can get all those colors too... but only on a portion of the window. white will show green, blue and pink on the side.. but not just around the edges. I think this is what the OP was talking about. I honestly do not think its a software issue as i am running lightflow on both of my nexus's and one is has run cm9 and AOKP witht he same results. It has to be a hardware issue. So if any one can answer this, is the LED attached to the screen or the lower speaker daughter board?

Related

[Q] Notification LED not pure colors?

I am using Lightflow to control my new GSM Galaxy Nexus notification light. However, unless it is flashing a primary color, like blue or red, the light color is slightly off. For example, yellow comes off looking reddish green while white looks like a purplish green. Even with darker colors, it doesn't look solid. Is it just my phone or has anyone seen an issue like this? Is my notification LED defective?
Thanks
charl87523 said:
Is my notification LED defective?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No; at least not from what you are describing.
Yours is fine, It's just a poor RGB LED setup.
Anything that I can do about it or do I just live with it?
Have the same problem. Is this normal?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
oscar90 said:
Have the same problem. Is this normal?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same issue here as well. Unfortunately, it seems fairly normal.
I haven't seen any real "fixes" yet and I'm sure if there is one. If there is one, I'm sure somebody will post up and help us out.
Only idea which comes to mind would be to poke around in the sysfs area to see if the stock kernel provides any controls of the LED and what those controls are ...
Is this a sw or hw defect? All galaxy nexus have this problem?
You'll just have to live with it, as do we all...
I have this too. It also looks like it's obstructed in a one way or another.
Isnt't yellow a primary color ;-)
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
There are 3 leds RBG (red blue green) that perform additive color mixing. And since there are only 3 leds (one of each color) it will seem separated when mixing of multiple colors occurs. In the past on other devices the color changing leds were surface mounted on the pc board with a plastic piece that would reduce the spread/mixing and diffuse it to a small 1/32" visible area on outside of the device. With galnex's thinner design with less diffusing and add in making the visible notification area 3/32" will make seeing a small portion of the individual colors when mixing occurs.
And yellow is a primary when dealing with subtractive color mixing (i.e. cyan magenta yellow black) also known as "cmyk" which is used for full color printing.
good day.
I've never seen so many ocd threads for any one particular device on a software development site ever before.
Chopper, I was about to explain it but you did the perfect job, nice one.
(I have repeated fights with my wife over what the primary colours are. She thinks in terms of art, I think in terms of light. But as our eyes see light, I'm right )
My colors look fine, with lightflow
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

Notification LED distorted?

I am positive that I am being paranoid about this but I thought I'd ask you guys anyway - when you guys use light flow to control the LED - if its a mixed color like, white, orange, cyan - do you see residue of indiviual led colors around the notification light? I mean when I do white I see a tint of green in one corner of the notification area, a bit of yellow, a bit of red but from a distance it looks white. I know white is a mix of all those colors but I just wanted to confirm that the LEDs on my phone arent out of place.
The notification LED isn't uniform; that's normal. It's good enough, you shouldn't bothered by it, as long as you can tell red from orange and the likes.
Thanks for the response!
Rgb led.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
i see the mixed colors as well for the color white. my nexus one LED did not do this, but i figure it's normal since samsung used RGB to make up the LED. they just must have positioned them differently in such a way that there is slight bleed thru. no big deal to me.
RogerPodacter said:
i see the mixed colors as well for the color white. my nexus one LED did not do this, but i figure it's normal since samsung used RGB to make up the LED. they just must have positioned them differently in such a way that there is slight bleed thru. no big deal to me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Our Nexus Ones had a large translucent trackball to further mix the colors....
Yep, whatever diffuser they put over the top of the rgb led doesn't mix colors very well at all. I almost miss the Nexus One track ball.
Could be worse, the Nexus S doesn't even have a notification LED.
it will get bad when we're *****ing about phones that didn't holographically project who sent you a text or email. but then again who wants to see your grandma naked?

Notification LED dim on Grey model

Hi,
I got a grey One X last week and while fairly happy with the phone I thought the notification LED was pretty dim. Unless I look at the phone flat on I can't see it is on. I accepted this was to do with the LED being placed within the speaker grill; however a friend got a White version a few days later and the LED on his is about 3 times brighter.
A few videos I have seen show the Grey phone has a very dim light, would post them but can't link unfortunately.
Search this text on youtube for video example
HTC One X videopreview da Hitechworldita.net
Has anyone else noticed this or is this an issue with my phone?
Bobbeh84 said:
Hi,
I got a grey One X last week and while fairly happy with the phone I thought the notification LED was pretty dim. Unless I look at the phone flat on I can't see it is on. I accepted this was to do with the LED being placed within the speaker grill; however a friend got a White version a few days later and the LED on his is about 3 times brighter.
A few videos I have seen show the Grey phone has a very dim light, would post them but can't link unfortunately.
Search this text on youtube for video example
HTC One X videopreview da Hitechworldita.net
Has anyone else noticed this or is this an issue with my phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that is simply because with the white casing, the light is able to shine through the white casing itself. Whereas obviously with the darker casing, it is truly confined to the tiny little hole of the earpiece. I do get the feeling that HTC designed the white one first
Yeah maybe, but comparing the two side by side, it looks as though his LED is a different type entirely. Looking at the LED straight on should negate the case colour and in that scenario his white version is still far brighter.
As long as other people think the grey one is dim there is no reason to send mine back.
Bobbeh84 said:
Yeah maybe, but comparing the two side by side, it looks as though his LED is a different type entirely. Looking at the LED straight on should negate the case colour and in that scenario his white version is still far brighter.
As long as other people think the grey one is dim there is no reason to send mine back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was one of the first things I noticed when I held a grey one. So I don't think it is faulty. But just like most things, LEDs do vary from unit to unit in brightness.
i haven't seen a grey one, but with my 2nd white replacement, the charging led was stupidly dim. now im on the 3rd replacement, the same led is much much brighter. leads me to believe it was positioned incorrectly, or just a crap led.
quality control really sucks atm.

Faulty led notification light?

Hopefully someone could clear this up... My notification light is never fully the colour I set it to. For example, I've set it to Yellow for one notification, however you can see tints of green in it. If i set it to green, I can see a quarter of it is blue. Is that the same for everyone else?
In my case it's the same. I think the LED can only show some standard colors like red, blue etc right. If you try any slitghtly different color it will try to do it like you do it when painting with watercolor. Mix them.
I think hat because when my LED should light up in white, I can see all colors in there. But maybe my phone is also just screwed :s
_____________
sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA Premium
the_f4b1 said:
In my case it's the same. I think the LED can only show some standard colors like red, blue etc right. If you try any slitghtly different color it will try to do it like you do it when painting with watercolor. Mix them.
I think hat because when my LED should light up in white, I can see all colors in there. But maybe my phone is also just screwed :s
_____________
sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA Premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can get Red, Green and Blue to work correctly, but the rest are screwed. The nexus one led worked really well.

[Q] Light Flow color issues on ATT Note 2

So, I'm a bit confused as I've been having a lot of trouble getting the lightflow notification colors to work properly on the ATT Galaxy Note 2, and I haven't seen anyone else complain of it yet. The light normally lights up in response to the colors I set, but the colors are usually completely off. For example, if I choose the light as "White", the color comes up as a light blue. Yellow and Orange come up as green usually. The only three colors I've successfully been able to use are red, green, and blue...but from what I'm reading, it seems like no one else has these limitations.
I've tried fiddling with the settings for the S3, and that seems to make matters worse rather than improve them. Can anyone else confirm or offer advice?
In case you're curious, stock rom, not rooted or modded in any way.
th3j3ster said:
So, I'm a bit confused as I've been having a lot of trouble getting the lightflow notification colors to work properly on the ATT Galaxy Note 2, and I haven't seen anyone else complain of it yet. The light normally lights up in response to the colors I set, but the colors are usually completely off. For example, if I choose the light as "White", the color comes up as a light blue. Yellow and Orange come up as green usually. The only three colors I've successfully been able to use are red, green, and blue...but from what I'm reading, it seems like no one else has these limitations.
I've tried fiddling with the settings for the S3, and that seems to make matters worse rather than improve them. Can anyone else confirm or offer advice?
In case you're curious, stock rom, not rooted or modded in any way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds odd...not sure what to tell you regarding lighflow, but you may want to give "light manager" a try in the play store. I've been using that for a couple days and prefer it over light flow.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2
I have the same off colors as you. The only clean colors I can get is Red, Green, and Blue. I think the LEDs are too far apart to work like a pixel and give clean colors. Everything else is just a dirty shade of one of those. Because of that I just let the stock LED settings stay. The ROMs I have used with Light Manager included seem to interfere with the stock LED settings even when turned off, so I "disable" it in the application manager.
Sent from my Note II
quarlow said:
I have the same off colors as you. The only clean colors I can get is Red, Green, and Blue. I think the LEDs are too far apart to work like a pixel and give clean colors. Everything else is just a dirty shade of one of those. Because of that I just let the stock LED settings stay. The ROMs I have used with Light Manager included seem to interfere with the stock LED settings even when turned off, so I "disable" it in the application manager.
Sent from my Note II
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I just tried light manager...same issue. The "white" notification is just a light blue. It's quite clearly blue though. I also downloaded an LED color tester, and I can replicate. Anyone else have the same issue on stock?
Because the Note II is new, it may take some tweaking by the developer to balance the brightness of the three separate LEDs. You will always have some imperfections as a result of how the LEDs are mounted on the board.
Sent from my SGH-I317M using xda premium
GR8CDNPumpkin said:
Because the Note II is new, it may take some tweaking by the developer to balance the brightness of the three separate LEDs. You will always have some imperfections as a result of how the LEDs are mounted on the board.
Sent from my SGH-I317M using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's a chance it may not be possible to get better colors. Sadly I've not got a note 2 in my rather large collection of devices to see an example.
Using the custom color option if you can get more accurate colors for the standard named colors let me know and I can probably incorporate them in.
The s3 and galaxy nexus both suffer from this a little, but it's not too bad, I've not seen a note 2 to compare. I think they either need the leds slightly closer together or a better diffuser over them to merge the colors more.
andrewpmoore said:
There's a chance it may not be possible to get better colors. Sadly I've not got a note 2 in my rather large collection of devices to see an example.
Using the custom color option if you can get more accurate colors for the standard named colors let me know and I can probably incorporate them in.
The s3 and galaxy nexus both suffer from this a little, but it's not too bad, I've not seen a note 2 to compare. I think they either need the leds slightly closer together or a better diffuser over them to merge the colors more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the answer, much appreciated. I had the Galaxy nexus before this and I came to rely on Light Flow quite heavily, but it's severely limited on my note 2. Even though the Gnex didn't blend perfectly, you could still get what resembles "white", or what resembles "orange" or what resembles "yellow". I literally can't get any of these colors in any form on my note 2. When I enter "White" as the color, or set the custom color of all RGB to 255 each, it's a strong, turquoise color. I can see the individual LED colors, and they all seem right on top of each other, but I'm wondering if it isn't the blue LED overpowering the other two. I tried lessening the blue saturation to 200 and leaving red and green at 255, but it didn't make much of a difference.
Your app isn't the only one with the problem...as I mentioned above, LED tester and Light Manager both have the same limitations for me. I'm just kind of wondering if it's something with the ATT/sammy Stock ROM itself, or if there is something physically defective with my device (and hence I should go bark at sammy for a while). I believe you mentioned somewhere in the release notes that the Note 2 has full color support in lightflow, and I don't see anyone else complaining...so trying to figure out if no one else cares, or no one else is having the problem.
andrewpmoore said:
There's a chance it may not be possible to get better colors. Sadly I've not got a note 2 in my rather large collection of devices to see an example.
Using the custom color option if you can get more accurate colors for the standard named colors let me know and I can probably incorporate them in.
The s3 and galaxy nexus both suffer from this a little, but it's not too bad, I've not seen a note 2 to compare. I think they either need the leds slightly closer together or a better diffuser over them to merge the colors more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also, if there is anything I can get to help you, I'd be glad to...you know, outside of a shiny new Note 2. If I was making a bit more money I'd be glad to send one over. But any debugging info, dumps, anything of that sort I can grab without being rooted or on a custom rom and send your way, let me know.
I am having the same issue with the light... I was looking at the light while I changed how bright each light is and I can clearly see where each LED is placed.... and that is too far away from each other to blend the colors correctly. I always end up with one corner being more red or blue or whatever then in the middle it seems to mix correctly.
Use the leds individually instead of blending. Save some battery. Honestly though, does it really matter, because, you know you are just going to flip the screen on and check whatever it is that triggered the notification anyways. Im just happy to finally have a led period. Dont really care about the colors. Now if they will just add a front facing speaker!
carhigh said:
Use the leds individually instead of blending. Save some battery. Honestly though, does it really matter, because, you know you are just going to flip the screen on and check whatever it is that triggered the notification anyways. Im just happy to finally have a led period. Dont really care about the colors. Now if they will just add a front facing speaker!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it actually does matter, for me at least. Maybe your workflow is that you just turn the screen on to check the notification, and if that's the case, then it's fine for you to only use one color. Your use case doesn't require anything further.
When I first got lightflow, however, it was on my Gnex, which did a decent job of blending. I would set different colors for different types of notifications. This was critical to me, because it let me know instantly, without having to turn the screen on, if I had something on my phone that needed to be actioned. If I walk away from my desk, go to the bathroom, and come back to a gmail color, I'm not turning my screen on. If it's a text message but I'm in the middle of something, I'm still not turning it on. If I get back, though, and I see someone's left a voicemail, there's a good chance it might be important, so yes, I'd turn my screen on. Add up all the different types of notifications I need to track, and it usually winds up with a hell of a lot more than just 3 colors.
On a side note, I've been playing with it all day. In addition to the LEDs being spaced horribly, the Blue LED is the most powerful, the green the second most, and the red LED is quite weak. This is why they don't blend well. Using custom RGB values in lighflow, I can mix it a little better than the preset colors, but it still doesn't look wonderful, because sammy borked the LED implementation on this phone.
Really? I disagreed with your assessment. I was nice about it. Just because we have a difference of opinion on how the device should work or be used, that's no reason to jump down my throat and start wishing my things to break. You're welcome to your opinion, but when you have to make it into an argument, go post elsewhere. This is a phone forum for people who mod their phones. I'm in the right place.
th3j3ster said:
So, I'm a bit confused as I've been having a lot of trouble getting the lightflow notification colors to work properly on the ATT Galaxy Note 2, and I haven't seen anyone else complain of it yet. The light normally lights up in response to the colors I set, but the colors are usually completely off. For example, if I choose the light as "White", the color comes up as a light blue. Yellow and Orange come up as green usually. The only three colors I've successfully been able to use are red, green, and blue...but from what I'm reading, it seems like no one else has these limitations.
I've tried fiddling with the settings for the S3, and that seems to make matters worse rather than improve them. Can anyone else confirm or offer advice?
In case you're curious, stock rom, not rooted or modded in any way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I have got the same issue with my Note II, I wanna use Orange Notification light with Handcent SMS Application, but it does not show Orange, instead an impure ugly greenish shade. The only colors I could use are Red, Green & Blue for notification.
<Aamer>
No issues with led at all here. Had my note II since February. No matter what ROM I'm on aosp, TW, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3...... for some reason LEDs work just as they should for me. Colors are vibrant and very easy to tell apart. So idk
Sent from my SGH-I317 using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2

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