Illumination Bar Notification

/ Rundgong / Illumination Bar Notification /

Illumination Bar Notification is a utility app for Sony Xperia NXT series of mobile phones. It will light up the transparent bar, the illumination bar, at the bottom of the device when you receive an SMS or you have missed a call.

In addition to the illumination bar, you can also control the regular notification LED, and the camera flash LED.

In addition to SMS and Missed Calls, notifications from almost any app is also supported.
The following apps have been verified to work, but almost all other apps should work too.

WhatsApp
Calendar
Email
Gmail
Google+
Google Talk
Twitter

The illumination bar can blink with different speeds or have a constant light depending on your preference.

This app will only have full functionality on Sony Xperia mobile phones that have the illumination bar.
Currently the following models are officially supported:
Xperia S, Xperia P, Xperia U, Xperia SP & Xperia L.

Notifications using the camera flash will work on most devices, and using the regular LED will also work on many devices.

On Xperia U, SP & L multiple colors are available to choose from (Red, Green, Blue, etc). Xperia S and P only have hardware support for one color so they are limited to white light.

The illumination bar will light up until the SMS is read, the call has been acknowledged or optionally the lights can be turned off when the screen is unlocked.

The app comes in both a free version, and a paid version.

Additional functionality in Illumination Bar Pro:
More colors. Any RGB color where hardware supports it.
Personal Notifications (Incoming Call, Missed Call, SMS) - Dedicate a special color to anyone in your contact list.

Screen shot of the settings for Illuminatin Bar Notification

Download

Illumination Bar Notification is available for free on Google Play.

Download APK directly

Illumination Bar Pro is available as a paid app on Google Play.

Help

Main Screen

Help

This screen.

Donate

This app is free, but if you like it and would like to help fund future development you can do so by donating some money to my Paypal account.

Click the button or go to paypal.com and make a donation to info@rundgong.com

General Settings

Settings that apply to all notifications, or that does not apply to notifications at all.
Clicking the items will sometimes bring up more detailed settings, and sometimes directly toggle a setting.

Phone Notifications

Notifications that do not belong to a specific app. Click any item to bring up more detailed settings.

App Notifications

Contains a list of apps that you can configure notifications for. Click any item to bring up more detailed settings.

Add more apps

Opens up a list of apps you can add to list of App Notifications

General Settings

Select Device

Select between Xperia U and Xperia S/P.
Xperia U option will NOT work on Xperia S/P. If you have Xperia U you can select both options to get different behavior.

LED Brightness

How strong the light will shine in the illumination bar.

Notification Timeout

How long until the illumination bar stop blinking after a notification is received.
To save battery the times may differ a little from the target time.
Default value "Never" means you have to manually acknowledge an event before it stops blinking.

Quick Stop

When you enable Stop light when screen is unlocked, this option will stop the light when the screen is turned on instead.
That means you only need to tap the power button to wake the screen if you want to stop the illumination bar light.
Note that some apps will turn on the screen when something happens (Skype, Viber, etc.). This means some notifications may stop before you have noticed them.

Don\'t notify when the screen is on

Do not start the notification light if the screen is on when the notification is received.

NOTE: If you enable this you risk missing notifications.
The illumination bar will not light up when the screen is turned off!

Don\'t show icon in the status bar

This app will not show an icon in the status bar if this option is enabled.

NOTE: If you enable this and receive a notification from an app while the screen is on you must turn off the screen before you can stop the notification.

Softkey Backlight Always On

Enable this to always have the illumination bar lit while the screen is on.
Notification blinks will override this light.

Temporary Disable

Set this to disable all notifications.
You can use this when you do not want to be disturbed to quickly disable all notifications from this app.

Off Hours

Set a time interval when the app will not notify.
Use this if you dont want any notifications for example during the night.
When the Off Hours ends any outstanding notifications will start to shine.
To save battery the set interval may not have exact timing.

Individual Notification Settings

Enable

Tick this checkbox to enable a notification

Stop light when screen is unlocked

Enable this to stop the light directly when the screen is unlocked. The default behavior is to stop blinking when an SMS is read, or a missed call has been acknowledged.
If the screen is on when you receive the notification the light will stay on as per the default behavior.

Color

A range of colors are available on Xperia U. Each type of notification can have its own color.
This option is not avialable on Xperia S and Xperia P.

Blink Rate

Blink Rate determines how fast the light will blink.
There are several options ranging from the fastest at 150 milliseconds, to the slowest at 2 seconds, which is the slowest rate the hardware supports.

Add Apps

This is a list of apps you have installed on your phone. You can add any one of them to the list of apps on the main page.
Just click on the app to toggle it on or off

Note that some apps may not give notifications properly for this app. Some apps make notifications in strange ways, some apps will only work with some settings, etc.

This means some apps will not give any notification light, and others may show weird behavior with their notification light.

Examples:
Voice apps like Skype and Viber will turn on the screen when a call is received, so they will not work with Don\'t notify when the screen is on.
Viber will update its status bar icon continuously during a call, which means the notification light will blink during the entire call, even if you stop the notification.

Test

The test buttons at the bottom of the screen lets you try out your LED settings without actually receiving an SMS.
Use this to preview blink patterns and to verify the LEDs work.

Problems / Known Issues

SMS notification does not work

If you have problems getting notifications for SMS, make sure your SMS app does not stop other apps from getting incoming SMS notifications.

For example, GO SMS Pro have an option in Settings -> "Receive Settings" -> "Disable other message notification". This should be unchecked!

Other SMS apps may have similar options.

Always On keeps the illumination bar on after the screen is off

This is because of a timing issue when the phone goes to sleep. The light will go off eventually, but it may take a while.
To turn it off manually, just wake the screen and put it back to sleep using the power button.

SMS / Phone notifications keep blinking after I have cleared the notification bar.

SMS and missed calls blink until they have been acknowledged in the system. Depending on your SMS and Phone app those values may not be reset when you dismiss the notification. To avoid this issue you can enable "Stop light when screen is unlocked".

Recommendations

Some examples of who has recommended this app.

Changelog

3.2:
Only for Android 4.3+
Light is stopped when app notifications are removed from status bar instead of when screen is turned on
New global option to still turn off light when screen is turned on.

3.1.3:
Bugfix for Xperia L - Missed calls improvements

Version 3.1:
Notification lights using regular LED, and Camera Flash
New permission: Camera needed to control the flashlight

Version 3.0.8:
Bugfix for Xperia L

Version 3.0.7:
Official support for SP + improved widget for ICS+

Version 3.0.4, 3.0.5:
Fix for Xperia S with Jelly Bean + improved translations

Version 3.0:
New Features:
Incoming call notification.
Personal Notifications (Incoming Call, Missed Call, SMS) - Pro version only
More colors. Any RGB color where hardware supports it - Pro version only
Bug Fixes:
Work around for Xperia P with Jelly Bean.
Support for Android 4.2 Accessibility Service.
Support Google Hangout.

Version 2.10:
Fix blinking on Xperia J
Minor improvments
Translate app to Swedish, French, Spanish

Version 2.9:
Better support for Xperia U custom ROMs (CyanogenMod)

Version 2.8:
More blink rate options

Version 2.7:
Set theme color. (Xperia U only)

Version 2.6:
Notifications for battery fully charged and battery empty

Version 2.5:
Added a widget to quickly enable or disable the app

Version 2.4:
Added Off Hours (Night mode).

Version 2.3:
Support notifications from any app.

Version 2.2:
Temporary Disable option.
Support Twitter notifications.

Version 2.1:
Bugfix regarding missed calls.
Option to not show icon in the status bar.
Support Facebook notifications.

Version 2.0:
New GUI + new icon
Support for 3rd party apps. (WhatsApp, Email, Calendar, etc.)
Add option to stop blinking when screen is turned on instead of when it is unlocked
Add option to not notify if the screen is on.

Version 1.4:
SMS notifications now also works with MMS.
Add timeout option to stop blinking after preset time.
Add option for "Always On", to keep light on when the screen is on.

Version 1.3:
Fix crash on devices with ICS (Android 4.0).
Screen stays off. (Previously it would light up regularly).
Add option to set the intensity of the LED light.

Version 1.2:
Added new slower blink option.
Added help page and donation button.
Help page includes instructions to solve issue with GO SMS Pro.

Version 1.1:
Add support for Xperia S and Xperia P.

Thanks

Thanks to Josh Taylor for the great icon.

Contact

If you have any questions please contact us at info [at] rundgong.com