Hey what's up everybody it's Dallas with Gadget Hacks.
And today I'm gonna show you how to turn your Galaxy S10's camera cutout into a notification indicator.
So with the S10 going almost completely bezel-less, Samsung had to remove the notification LED.
People say it's no big deal because they have the Always On Display now,
but that's just not true.
With the LED, you could see when you had a new notification from across the room.
But with the Always On Display, you gotta look for the tiny little notification indicators
that don't flash or move or do anything. It's just not the same.
But that's not the only ball Samsung dropped. They designed this phone with a display cutout
for the camera, and they could've embraced it by making it actually do something.
One thing I really wanted to see from the beginning was some sort of notification ring around the camera.
That would've made it a lot easier to lose the notification LED.
But while Samsung didn't do that, Chainfire did.
I'm sure you've heard that name. Chainfire's legendary in the root community for his work
on Super SU and CF Auto Root.
But he sold that project a couple years ago and now he's moving on to making really cool
apps, apparently.
The app that makes this all possible is called Holey Light — that's H O L E Y — and Chainfire
has the beta version up on Google Play.
So to start, head to the Play Store and install Holey Light. It's free and it doesn't require
root, so the only caveat you should know about is it'll only work on the Galaxy S10, S10+,
and S10e.
Then once you open the app, there's a pretty handy setup wizard.
You'll want to read each of these screens carefully because your choices here will affect
how the app actually works, but I'll still walk you through them.
First, it's gonna ask if you want to show the notification indicator on the Always On
Display. That's the best experience in my opinion, but it does drain extra battery life.
So it's your choice, but know that if you answer yes, your battery life's gonna take
a hit.
Now it'll ask what style of indicator you'd like to use. There's an animated one called
Swirl, a simple blinking circle called Blink, and a static circle called Unholey Light.
What you should know here is that, again, the better option drains more battery. Swirl
definitely looks the best, but it uses more battery than Blink.
Both of these use more battery than Unholey Light, which gets its name because it doesn't
actually highlight the camera hole. It's just a big ugly circle in the middle of your screen.
I'm going with Swirl because it's awesome, but you might want to try Blink if you notice
battery life takes a hit. I'll show you how to change that later in the video, so give
Swirl a try for now.
Now it's asking if you want to show the Always On Display. Holey Light can replace your AOD
with a black screen that only shows the notification ring.
So if you're not a fan of Samsung's Always On Display, hit the Hide button here. Otherwise,
go with Show.
Now the setup wizard's done. But this next part is just as important.
You're gonna have to give Holey Light several unusual permissions. But before we get into
those, let me stress that Chainfire is a very trustworthy developer, and this is an open
source app.
So these permission requests are unusual, but they're not shady. The app just needs
some extra access and a couple workarounds to do what it does without root.
First, you're gonna need to link the app with a physical device. This can either be a Bluetooth
accessory or just your Wi-Fi network.
It doesn't matter what device you link it to, but the app needs this access so it can
read the color of notifications and make the ring indicator match them.
But before you tap "OK" here, make sure Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are turned on from your Quick
Settings panel.
If they are, tap "OK," then give it a few seconds...and a list of Wi-Fi points you've
connected to will show up. If you can, pick the network you're currently connected to.
The next permission is Notification Access, which is straightforward. It needs this so
it can know when to light up the notification ring.
Just hit "OK" here...then find Holey Light on the next screen and turn on the toggle
switch next to it...and hit "Allow."
Back out to Holey Light, then it will ask for the next permission. This is just an Accessibility
Service, which is common for apps like these.
So hit OK, then scroll down and tap "Installed Services" at the bottom.
From there, select Holey Light, then enable the switch and press OK.
Back out to Holey Light again...and now it'll ask you to stop optimizing battery usage.
This will prevent Android from killing the Holey Light service in the background, but
it will cause some minor battery drain.
You could say no here, but it's really not enough battery to worry about. So hit OK,
then tap "Allow."
Now you're ready to go. Before you try it out, take some time to look through this main
menu.
First, always make sure this toggle switch is enabled at the top of the screen. If it's
off, the notification indicator will go away.
But from there, you can adjust when and how to display the notification ring. If you chose
the same options I did on that setup wizard, the first 5 will be enabled.
But this is what I mentioned earlier. If you start noticing the battery drain is just too
much, you might want to come in here and selectively disable some of the options.
For instance, you can tap "Battery: Screen Off"... and then you can choose from Swirl,
Blink, or Unholey again.
You could even pick Disabled to save some significant battery life, but the notification
indicator would stop working with the screen off.
Beneath that, though, you have the option to tweak the animations and the colors. It's
pretty nice by default, but if you want to change the look, this is where to go.
The last thing I wanted to show you in here is this "Mark as seen" section. This controls
when the notification indicator will stop displaying.
By default, the app behaves like the notification LED, so it'll keep blinking until you dismiss
or read a notification.
But if you want to save a little extra battery, you can tap "Picked Up," and tick all these
boxes, then it will stop showing the animation after you pick up your phone.
Or you can enable "On Lockscreen" and "After Unlock," then it will stop the indicator any
time you wake your phone or unlock it.
But now that the setup process is out of the way, we can check out how it works...
First, at the time of this video, the app's still in its beta phases, so it's not perfect.
But I will say we've been tracking this app since day 1, and over just a couple weeks,
it went from mostly broken to adequately functional.
And again, this is a Chainfire app, who's an amazing dev. So I expect it to continue
getting better and more reliable over the next few months and beyond.
But as it stands, the notification ring works reliably on the lock screen for most apps.
It seems to be hit or miss on the Always On Display, but most users are reporting that
it's working for them now.
The other thing to know is that it will only light up for notifications that would've lit
up the notification LED if the S10 had one. So actionable notifications, not ongoing or
minimized alerts.
All that being said, we now have a feature that should've been included with the S10
out of the box, and it's all thanks to an awesome developer.
But for the full breakdown, be sure to check out the article over on gadgethacks.com.
And as always, we'd appreciate it if you would like and comment on this video and subscribe
to our channel.
So we'll see you again next time, folks, but until then... happy Gadget Hacking.