Once upon a time, the best Android smartphones had a notification light.
These LEDs flashed when the phone received a notification. In fact, in some models it was possible to change the color of the LED, depending on the type of notification or the application. Over time, companies did away with the notification LED as display bezels became too thin to accommodate them. But it looks like this feature will be back, in a different form, with Android 14’s notifications.
In the second developer preview of Android 14 there is a new control in the accessibility settings called “Flash Notifications”.
This new control flashes either the camera LED, the screen, or both when the phone receives a notification. In addition, it gives the user the ability to even change the color of the screen. Unfortunately, since the feature was designed to help hearing impaired people know we have a notification, it doesn’t provide much flexibility.
Basically, the options available are simply to enable/disable the function and choose a color. Anyone who wants something more can use a third-party app or the advanced notification features offered by OEMs in their ROMs. Still, the fact that this is built into Android 14’s notifications is a plus.
For some, this will be enough to convince them not to download a third-party app that will constantly run in the background, consuming even a few resources.
Of course, Android 14 is still in the developer preview stage, so there’s a chance that this feature won’t be available in the stable version after all, or it will change form.
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