Illumination Bar

[carom]

I have a Sony Xperia SP and cannot believe there is not a simple way to switch the Illumination bar off and on!!

If I leave my phone on overnight I do not want a light constantly flashing, nor if I am in a meeting or driving as it is very distracting.

I have tried several apps which have been suggested would switch this light off (Night mode, Illumination Bar) but none have worked and end up over riding the customisation of the light e.g. only one colour available for incoming sms rather than choosing different colours for different contacts so this totally defeats the purpose of having the light in the first place surely!

This is my 4th Sony phone and generally I love them, in the past the light has been a bit more discreet and on turning the phone face down it was hidden but the illumination bar shines whichever way you put the phone.

I don't want to disable this completely, just have a nice simple shortcut from the homescreen like for wifi etc where you can switch light notifications off when required. Does anyone know if there is such a thing? Or is there any chance of Sony adding this in a future update? Otherwise I am considering looking at another handset.

[thomasbramwell]

Ever since updating my phone to 4.1.2 ages ago the illumination bar hasn't been the same since, it'll only flash ever few seconds when on charge instead of pulsing all the time like it used to. Anyone else had this problem? is there a fix?

Cheers guys.

[him]

You can turn off the illumination bar by going into settings>display>light effects>notifications.

[carom]

Thanks. I had tried that but it didn't seem to work before. I think it was possibly being over-ridden by one of the other apps. I've now uninstalled all other apps and will try this again.

It would still be useful to be able to have a shortcut to do this rather than go in via settings.

[him]

Unfortunately there is no shortcut to do this.

[sroger]

Not had this problem but have you checked your settings and see if vibrate has been turned off? Also check its not on Airplane mode this will turn off sences and lots more

Also check to see if you have put your phone on Save Battery mode or Stamina Mode? this will turn functions off with use still of your phone your find this in Settings - Power management

Also last thing i can suggest is Settings - Sound - Vibrate on touch etc

                                                         Settings- Display etc

Somethings been turned off i would assume is the problem as you said it does do this but not fully. So it works but has been disabled or half disabled lol

Hope you figure out and if you do Post how you did it Just to help others  

[markym · Accepted solution]

I have managed to fix this - I disabled notifications in Settings > Display > Light effects, then use the "Illumination Bar Notification" app. You can customise the colours for different apps notifications, and set "Off Hours". Works a treat! Just make sure you turn off notifications in the phone's settings first!

[carom]

Thanks markym. I've tried illumination bar notification app but it wouldn't switch the light off. It was probably because I hadn't turned it off in the phone settings. I might give it continues go but the other issue I had with it was that I was unable to keep the customisation of sms notifications. I use handcent sms app which I love but lost some of its notification features.

[Danial-mach1]

you can use full version (paid)

in that version you can add other apps to light on the illumination bar

i have this app and my phone light effects are on..but app is not overriden by handset light effects

[carom]

I've tried downloading the Illumination bar app again and this time switching off the phones own light effects. I've added Handcent to the list of apps and so far so good! All seems to be working much better. 

Thanks for all the comments.