Everyone in tech circles might be crazy about artificial intelligence right now, but here in the land of Android, we’ve got plenty of other interesting things coming up.
Believe it or not, Google is already hard at work on the next big Android release: the clunky Android 14 from the early teens. And although it is still much too early to say precisely what the release will entail, a nugget from the latest Android 14 developer preview is quite intriguing.
The most recent Android 14 preview, in particular, introduces a nifty new set of options around notifications – an area that’s simultaneously one of the best And the worst elements of any modern mobile device.
However, these new options aim to make them even more useful by making sure you never miss anything important. With a few quick switches, you can flash your phone with a custom-colored LED-like light on your screen when a new alert comes in — or, if you really want to get fancy, make it flash the back of your phone. focused camera light to grab your attention (and/or give you an impressively affordable way to create an on-demand rave).
Both approaches can certainly be useful in the right situation. And here’s the really good news: you actually don’t even know need Android 14 to make it all possible.
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You can even make one more advanced and customizable version of that same kind of notification magic on every Android device this minute – if you know where to look.
Your Android Notifications Upgrade: The On-Screen Element
We’ll start with the first part of the Android 14 notification upgrade: that fancy flashing screen effect. This one is wonderfully easy to get to, and it’ll put a snappy new twist on the notification, um, report to your phone.
The key to making this happen is a handy little app called AodNotify. It’s one of my favorite Android enhancing tools and something I constantly rely on on my own personal devices.
The specific version of AodNotify you need depends on the type of phone you are using:
Once you’ve got the right version for your phone and gone through the initial setup, it’ll take about 90 seconds for your screen to light up in different ways for different notifications – and you can rest easy knowing you’ll never miss the most important incoming information.
And you also have some interesting choices here:
- You can have incoming notifications from certain apps create a light ring around the camera cutout at the top of your screen, so you’ll always see them, even if you don’t hear the first thing
- You can create a small LED style dot at the top of your screen for specific types of alerts
- And you can set must-have full-screen outline lighting in any color and style you want associated with certain notifications
JrYou can also customize all sorts of things about how your on-screen notification lights work. Three of my favorite options are:
- The ability to specify which specific apps will make a notification light appear. Unlike the underdeveloped equivalent of Android 14, this allows you to limit which apps cause that glaring effect – for example, you can make it happen with something major like Slack or Gmail, but not with any other warning you get
- The ability to expand previous apps and also give yourself an on-screen notification light for important system events, such as a dangerously low battery
- The ability to select which color is used for your on-screen notification lights. The best choice, if you ask me, is to have AodNotify automatically pull the primary color associated with each app, because that makes it super easy to know at a glance what type of alert is involved
JrAodNotify is free with an optional $5 upgrade for some of its more advanced features. The app doesn’t require any permissions beyond what’s necessary for its operation, and the developer (a well-known and widely trusted Android mainstay) says the software doesn’t collect, store, or share user data in any way.
Cool? Cool. But don’t tune in just yet. We have one more option to consider, and it’s a good one.
The Android 14 like camera flash alert
That first path is a perfect Android notification upgrade for most people – and it’s really an even more flexible and complete setup than what Google is currently cooking up in Android 14 itself.
like you Real if you want to make sure important alerts get your attention, there’s one more choice worth chewing on. And it’s something that also ties in closely with one of Android 14’s new notification features.
It is a Missed call reminder app that makes it as easy as possible to fire your phone’s camera flash for incoming notifications – and not just those of missed calls, despite what the name implies. Best of all? Like our first tool, it offers many options and customization options that make it significantly better than the current native equivalent of Android 14.
Once you have have installed the app, you will see a list of default profiles for when the camera flash should occur. (And by the way, depending on where you look, the app is also called Prof Reminder instead of Missed Call Reminders. Hey, we all have an identity crisis sometimes.)
JrTap on a profile to edit it and set everything up for your own specific purposes. And if you are not If you plan on using one of those default profiles, you’ll need to tap the three-dot menu icon and select the option to disable it completely, otherwise it will work when you least expect it and surprise your poor unprepared peepers.
You can make your own new also a custom profile, which is the easiest way to set a camera flash alert for high priority notifications from specific apps.
Missed Call Reminder is free to use in its basic form, though some of the more advanced options — including the ability to create custom camera flash alerts for notifications from different apps — require a one-time $3 upgrade to unlock.
And there you have it. We may still be months away from the official arrival of Android 14, but right now you can get a sneak peek at one of its most interesting under-developed features – and you can make your phone infinitely more useful as a result.
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