Smartphones have many features designed specifically for people with special needs, but often they are useful for the average person as well. For example, features like unlocking and locking the screen without the power button, answering calls without touching the phone, and more. Today, we also highlight a useful feature for everyone, which is the flashing of the flashlight when receiving notifications or calls. Of course, it is an important feature for those with hearing impairments as it allows them to easily notice incoming calls or messages without directly looking at the phone screen. This feature is also helpful for staying informed about incoming calls, messages, and notifications when you are usually in silent mode. So, let’s explore how to activate it as it is disabled by default on all phones.
Enabling Flash with Calls and Notifications on Android Phones
Android phones are equipped with an LED flash that is usually located somewhere with the rear camera. While the flash is designed to enhance the photographic experience in dark places, this does not prevent its use for other purposes, the most common being using the phone as a flashlight.
If you need a new way of alerting, you can activate a hidden feature in the phone settings that lights up the rear flash when receiving a call or notification on the phone. But note that in this case, the phone will not light up the flash the same way it does when taking a picture in a dark room. Instead, a dim and quick flash is provided to be attention-grabbing and non-intrusive at the same time.
As usual, the method of enabling this feature on Android phones varies depending on the user interfaces of each phone, but it is almost available in all phones from well-known manufacturers such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, and Oppo. In general, the option to activate the feature is always present in the “Accessibility” or “Ease of use” section within the settings page. For the purpose of this explanation, we will discuss how to activate the feature on Samsung phones in the following lines.
All you have to do is open the “Settings” app, then scroll down and go to the “Accessibility” section and from there move to the “Advanced Settings” section to find an option called “Flash Notification”. Click on it. Now you can activate the “Camera Flash Notification” option to turn on the rear LED flash every time you receive a message or notification, where the flash will flash several times for a short time and then stop.
You also have the option to specify whether you want to activate the flash with notifications from specific apps only or all apps. Samsung also provides a second option to activate the “Screen Flash Notification,” which causes the screen to flash at a high brightness level several times in a row to alert you to a notification or call. You can activate both options so that you notice calls and notifications whether the phone is placed on its back or near you.
This is for Samsung phones. As for Xiaomi phones, the process may vary slightly, so we recommend checking our previous article where we covered the steps to activate the flashlight feature when receiving calls on the Xiaomi Android interface. In any case, if you search your phone settings and do not find an option related to this feature, you can search on the Play Store to find many apps that perform the same task.
Read also: How to activate the flash without clicking any button or using external apps?
Enabling Flash with Calls and Notifications on iPhone
Similar to Android phones, the LED flash next to the camera lens on the back of the iPhone can flash when the phone is locked and you receive a notification or a phone call. This feature is not limited to people with hearing impairments but is useful for anyone who may miss audio notifications. To activate it, open the “Settings” app, then click on “Accessibility” and then click on “Audio/Visual”. Now at the bottom, you will find an option called “LED Flash for Alerts” which, when activated, will instruct the phone to flash the flashlight when receiving any notification – only if the phone is locked.
Also, once you enable the “LED Flash for Alerts” option, you will see an option “Flash on Silent” which is enabled by default. If you disable it, the flashlight will not light up when the iPhone is in silent mode. From now on, when you flip the phone face down, you will see a quick flash of the flashlight to know that there is a notification or call without emitting the usual notification ringtone sound. However, it is not advisable to leave this feature enabled all the time if you receive a lot of notifications as it will put a burden on the battery.
