If you don’t like hole punch camera designs on Android devices, and you probably don’t like the one on the Google Pixel 4a and Pixel 5, I’m going to show you a simple tip that can make you appreciate it more than you did before.
In this article, I’ll show you how to turn your Pixel phone’s hole-punch camera cutout into a personalized notification LED light. After you’ve finished setting everything up, it should appear like the image above.
Some android phones like the Samsung Galaxy S7 have a blinking LED on the front mostly used for indicators to notify us of incoming calls, messages, and phone charging. Google uses a new feature called Ambient Display instead. This feature allows some cool-looking LED light should be display around the punch hole front camera.
Simply put, every time you receive a new notification on your phones, such as a missed call, an unread message, or social network notifications, you will see that cool-looking ring of light up there, shining around your phone’s hole-punch camera cutout.
By default, no preinstalled app on the Google Pixel phone allows you to use this feature effectively. So, this article will guide you on how to set this up on the Google Pixel 4a or Pixel 5 phone.
Without further ado, let’s dive in.
How to Set up notification LED light on Google Pixel 4a and Pixel 5
You have two ways to set up the Google Pixel 41 or 5 Notification Led light. You either use the “Always on Edge” app or the “Holey Light” app. If the first does not work out, then the second should.
Method 1
THE FIRST STEP
Go to the Google Play Store and download the AOE “Always On Edge” app. The first app in the search result should be the actual app. Just press install. You can also go to the play store here.
Many of you, especially Samsung users, should be familiar with this app and what it does now since this app was made for Samsung phones at first. This app was initially created with the Samsung Galaxy S10 phones in 2019 when they came out. The developers of this app had to make it available for any phone as many phones begin to adopt punch hole camera designs.
After you’ve downloaded it and most likely installed it, open it and allow it permission to the appropriate requests that it will ask you for. It should then take you right to the home screen, where you should see an interface that looks like the first column in the picture below.
STEP 2
Tap the first option on the app’s homepage that says “Main Settings,” It should take you to a page you will find many other settings. You can check and uncheck anyone you like or dislike, but I recommend you leave the settings the way they are in the first column of the screenshots below and make sure you save the settings. If you can’t see the images properly, you can decide to zoom in.
STEP 3
Return to the app’s homepage and click the next option, “App Settings,” and you should be sent to a new screen that looks like the second column in the image above.
You can take your time and scroll through the page, removing and enabling the settings as you see fit, because believe me, this is a long page.
But, for those who think the procedure is too complex and the app settings are too overwhelming and sophisticated for them to handle, you can choose your selections the same way they were set for you in the screenshot above.
Finally, remember to save your settings when you’re finished.
STEP 4
Return to the app’s home screen and select the next configuration option, “Lighting Settings,” where things become very interesting and creative.
I mentioned “creative” because you can set and modify how the ring of light surrounding your phone’s hole-punch camera cutout looks and feels on this page. This means you can choose how you want the notification LED lights to look, colors, and the kind of effects you’d love.
However, some fundamental concepts to understand and guidelines to follow before you begin to be creative. Consider the following:
- To begin, you’ll need to tell the software what kind of hole punch camera design your phone has, which you can accomplish by setting the “Enable Notch Support” option and selecting “Adjust Manually.”
- Choose “O” for “Notch Type.” Then, using the “Notch Height” slider below, you may customize how big or little you want the camera ring light to be.
- Scroll down to the “Notch Placement” portion of the page and make sure it’s set to “Around Notch Only.”
- After that, you’ll need to inform the app where the hole punch camera cutout is positioned on your phone’s screen.
- You can do so by selecting one of three options: “Right, Left, or Center.” They should be visible in the app.
- The light ring would not immediately move to the left if you chose “Left,” which is presumably what you’ll do because that’s where the Pixel 4a and 5’s are. You’ll still have to tweak it to make sure it’s aligned with the hole punch camera cutout on the phone.
- To do so, utilize the slider labeled “Top (set 0 if not hole)” to shift the light ring higher or downwards, as well as a fourth option that is unlabeled but placed immediately below those three that allows you to determine the position of the hole punch camera cutout. You may move the light ring left or right with this one.
- You can choose to set both “Notch Width” and “Curve Radius” to zero because they have no effect at this stage.
- After you’ve double-checked that the light ring is fitted correctly to your Google Pixel 4a and Pixel 5 camera cutout and is the right size, you can start personalizing things the way you want them to be.
- You have complete control over the Edge Style, color, lighting mode, and lighting effect. So personalize everything to your liking, and don’t forget to save your changes.
Press on the eye icon situated somewhere around the right border of your phone’s screen to preview your settings as you go.
When you’ve finished previewing your configuration and are happy with the results thus far, you can save it. You should see your personalized hole punch-inspired notifications light up the next time you get a notification.
Additional Features of the Google Pixel 4a notification LED Lights.
Apart from setting up personalized hole punch notifications LED for your Google Pixel 4a & Pixel 5 mobile devices, this software also features a wonderful collection of live animation wallpapers. Still, you’ll need to upgrade to the premium version to see them.
However, you can still take a look at them before choosing whether or not they’re worth your money. To do so, return to the app’s home screen and tap on the “Animated Wallpapers” icon at the very top of it. You should see a preview of all the animated wallpapers available in the app from there.
Method 2
This app can also get the job done, but you don’t have many options and settings. At the time of writing, the app has a 3.9 / 5.0 on Google, but I have tried the app, and it works just fine for me. To integrate the notification LED light using this app, follow these steps;
- Step 1: Visit the Google Play store and search for “Holey Light”. You can visit the app here.
- Step 2: Install the app and grant it access to all requested app usage.
- Step 3: Turn the Holey Light app on
- Step 4: You can begin setting the app to your taste at this point. Available settings include show notification light while charging, screen off, when picked up on lock screen, after unlock, on timeout. You can turn on or off any settings anytime.
- Step 5: Select the LED colors you want.
- And that’s all you have to do. The app should start working it magic at this moment.
