Behind the scenes
Why Phones Lost the Notification LED, and What Replaced It
By the llcloud team 4 min read
Quick answer
Phones lost the notification LED mainly because screens grew to fill the front, leaving no room for a separate light, and because OLED screens with an Always-On Display could show notifications without one. The alternatives are flash notifications built into Android, edge lighting, a glowing ring around the camera cutout drawn on the screen, and on the Pixel 11 Pro, Pro XL and Pro Fold, the HiLight LED ring on the back.
For years, a small blinking light near the top of an Android phone told you something was waiting. Green for a message, blue for an email, white for something else, all without touching the phone. Few phones still have one, and people still ask where it went. Here is what happened, and what you can use instead, including what we build with AuraDisplay and AuraGlow.
Why did phones stop having a notification LED?
There was no single decision. A few changes pushed the same way.
The screen took over the front. The LED lived in the strip above the display, next to the earpiece, the front camera and the light sensor. As phone makers stretched screens toward the edges, that strip shrank and then vanished. The camera moved into a notch, then into a small hole in the screen. There was nowhere left for a light that only did one job.
The Always-On Display covered the same need. OLED panels light each pixel on its own, and a black pixel is simply off. That made it practical to keep a clock and a row of notification icons on screen while the phone sleeps. For phone makers, that looked like a richer version of the same idea.
Android moved light settings into notification channels. Android lets apps group their notifications into channels, and the light color became a per-channel setting. The setting still exists in Android's developer tools, but on a phone with no LED there is nothing for it to light.
None of that made the LED a bad idea. It just meant the hardware lost its place on the front of the phone.
What did people lose with it?
An Always-On Display shows small icons. You have to pick up the phone, or at least lean over it, to see which app they belong to. Many phones also dim or hide it after a while, when the room is dark, or when the phone is face down. A colored blink, by contrast, could be read from across a room in a second, and with the right app each color meant a different app.
That glance is the part people miss most, and it is the part the alternatives below try to bring back.
What are the alternatives to a notification LED?
| Option | Where you see it | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Flash notifications | The camera flash or the whole screen blinks | Built into Android, no app |
| Edge lighting | A glow along the screen border | Built into some phones, or an app |
| Ring around the camera cutout | A glow around the front camera hole | An app such as AuraDisplay |
| HiLight ring | The LED ring on the back of the phone | Pixel 11 Pro, Pro XL or Pro Fold |
Flash notifications
Android has a Flash notifications setting, under Notifications or Accessibility depending on the phone. It blinks the camera flash, the screen, or both when a notification arrives. It costs nothing and needs no app. It is also a burst rather than a lasting light, so if you were not looking, you missed it. Our guide on how to get a notification light on Android shows where to find it.
Edge lighting
Some phones, Samsung's among them, can light the edges of the screen when a notification arrives. On Samsung phones it plays when the notification pops up and stops after a set time, so it works as an alert rather than a reminder. Our guide to Samsung notification lights explains what Samsung offers, and edge lighting on any Android phone covers phones that have none.
A ring around the camera cutout
The front camera sits where the LED used to be, so drawing a light around it is the closest thing to the old spot. AuraDisplay draws a glowing ring around the punch hole, pill or notch, or a glow along the screen edge, on the lock screen and the Always-On Display. Each app gets its own color, and the light stays until you open or clear the notification.
One honest limit: on the Always-On Display the light holds still. The panel redraws about once a second in that mode, so smooth animation is not possible there, and we explain why in why notification lights cannot animate on Always-On Display. The animations play when the screen is awake. The AOD part also needs an AMOLED screen with the Always-On Display turned on.
The Pixel 11 Pro HiLight ring
The Pixel 11 Pro, Pro XL and Pro Fold brought a real LED back, as a ring around the camera flash on the back. Out of the box, Google lights it for favorite callers and Gemini. AuraGlow lights it for any app you pick, in a color per app, which suits a phone lying face down on a desk. Our guide to Pixel 11 Pro HiLight notifications covers the built-in options and what AuraGlow adds.
Which one should you pick?
If you only want to know that something arrived, flash notifications are free and already on your phone. If you want to see which app is waiting without picking the phone up, a lasting light in a color per app is what the old LED did, and a ring around the camera or a glow along the edge is the nearest match. If you are weighing a built-in option against an app, AuraDisplay vs Samsung Edge Lighting compares the two side by side.
The LED left because the front of the phone changed. The reason people wanted it, a glance that tells you what is waiting, did not.
Sources
Questions
Why don't phones have a notification LED anymore?
Mostly because of space. As screens stretched to the top edge, the strip above the display that held the earpiece, sensors and a small LED got thinner or disappeared. At the same time, OLED screens made the Always-On Display possible, which shows the clock and notification icons while using little power, so phone makers had less reason to keep a separate light.
What can I use instead of a notification LED?
Android's own flash notifications blink the camera flash or the screen when a notification arrives. Some phones have edge lighting along the screen border. An app like AuraDisplay can draw a light around the camera cutout or along the edge on the lock screen and Always-On Display. The Pixel 11 Pro models also have the HiLight ring on the back.
Is the Always-On Display a good replacement for the LED?
For some people. It shows small notification icons, which you have to look closely at to read, and many phones hide it after a while or when the phone is face down. A colored glow is easier to spot from across a room. On AOD a glow stays steady, because the panel only redraws about once a second.
