Dimming your flashlight on Android 13+
If you’re not an owner of a modern smartphone of a few brands that already have support for that feature (like Samsung), you might wonder how to do that.
Let me tell you something on that topic.
Technical Background
Manufacturers like Samsung have had this feature implemented into most of their smartphones for many years now, but it wasn’t possible for Android developers to have control over that.
Starting with Android 13, it it possible ony every Android phone to control different brightness levels of the device’s flashlight. Unfortunately this only works if the device’s hardware supports that.
Google’s turn
The Google Pixel series was the first to receive Android 13. That basically means that the Pixel phones are the first to officially support this feature.
BUT at the time I’m writing this the mentioned hardware is only implemented into the Pixel 6 and 7 series:
- Pixel 6a
- Pixel 6
- Pixel 6 Pro
- Pixel 7
- Pixel 7 Pro
The good part is that more and more phones will adopt that feature
How to dim the flashlight now?
Once you receive Android 13 you might wonder how to control the brightness levels.
The short answer is: There is not official way (yet).
The longer answer is: You can already take advantage of this feature programmatically. I’ve searched for an app to support that new feature but I haven’t found a single one…
That’s why I developed my own small flashlight app with dim functionality:
The app is available on the Google Play Store and F-Droid
Maybe Google will include the dim functionality into the system UI soon, but for now this is the easiest way to make us of the dim feature.
Feedback is always appreciated and have fun!
