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Active Display Question

B

bert1959

Newbie
Hi users,

I posted this question at AndroidCentral, and I believe 350 people looked at it with no reply. Maybe my questions aren't written well or are stupid or possibly just doesn't have an answer. But, saying there is no answer is an answer.

You have the Active Display which is a great feature. But, when I miss texts or calls I rarely see them since the phone is usually sleeping. Given the display is only using their own pixels and the battery lasts so long, why can't it just stay lit so I can see at a glance that I have a text or email or call waiting? Is there a 3rd party app that would allow this?

If not, or I am missing something, which is very likely, please tell me.

Thanks.

Bert
 
It takes a lot of battery to keep the screen lit.

I use Tasker and find it very useful.

I normally have the display set to a 1 minute timeout. I find when I am working on my phone that the display was turning off too frequently so I set a simple Tasker task to set the timeout to 1 hour.

You could do the same ... use Tasker and set the display timeout for a very long time ... and watch your battery deplete.

An alternative is touchless control ... OK Google What's Up (in my case OK Droid What's Up).

... Thom
 
It was designed the way it was designed. Only Motorola knows for sure, but I'm sure that Thom has it right; Motorola balanced feature for battery life.

Also, active display (now called Moto Display) was designed to replace a blinking LED, so I bet the blinking was designed to mimic that, in its way.
 
Thanks Thom and doogald. Not sure if you use the Droid Turbo, but one of the features I like about it is the battery life. With the way I use it, I have to charge it every three days so battery life isn't really an issue. And, from what I understand, it only uses the battery to run the pixels in the display so not much.

I apologize for asking a question and then sort of disagreeing. I hope it doesn't come off that way. LED blinking like I had with my earlier Galaxy Nexus would be nice, but I would think Motorola would have thought to keep the time and message notification lit.

There is an app called Alert Me, which does give me a sound every 1, 2, 5, 10....minutes, but it is rather quiet. It was kind of strange since it SEEMED like it worked only when Light Flow was installed. I could be wrong, and since I have been using Alert Me for only two days, it's hard to know unless I get some test texts and calls to try it out.

There are two not uncommon scenarios which make me wonder why all phones aren't designed this way. Whenever I am in a place where I can't check a text, such as in an exam room seeing a patient, I rely HEAVILY on a reminder to sound or vibrate every five minutes or so or I tend to forget. Plus, there are times that I leave the phone in my office and don't even hear a call or text, and I would like to know. The actual Attentive Display staying lit up would be a plus, but I guess not completely necessary.

Another time it used to help me a lot was when I was sleeping and the phone was sleeping. The text would come in, and I wouldn't hear it at 3 am as I may have been in REM sleep (or whichever one). But, I would always hear it eventually. Also, imagine expecting a text and being able to glance over and see the Attentive Display lit up without having to check the phone. It just seems obvious. Maybe if I rooted the phone.

I realize the Motorola didn't do this, so it would have to be a 3rd party app. Anyway, as you guys saw in my first post, the fact that you replied in the first 24 hours is a huge plus compared to the other group.

Thanks.

Bert
 
I use Tasker with my Turbo to customize it more the way I want.

One profile I have verbally announces an incoming text, who it is from, and then the message. Something in that direction might be helpful.

Have Tasker wake up every 10 min and do something.

If you are a little flexible in allowing change in how you have done things in the past will open doors. I never thought I would use touchless control. It seemed stupid. Then I tried it and wonder how I lived without it. It is the future. As I type this I say "ok droid weather" and it announces the current weather report outside my window. No I am not looking at anything other than my workstation screen.

... Thom
 
I understand what you're saying, Bert, but Motorola designed it the way they designed it, and provided no way to alter the behavior. Again, none of us work at Motorola, so we don't know why they made the design decisions that they did, but I truly suspect that they wanted to make sure that even the heaviest users of the phone working in areas with a poor mobile signal (which would require the battery to supply more power to the antenna) will still get adequate battery life with the phone, so they balanced features in the way that they thought best.

It may also be that they feared screen burn in, which is a real possibility with AMOLED displays, and would be a major issue for a lot of people if they saw ghost images of the clock and a circle in the center if their displays when they were trying to use their phones.
 
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