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Light sensor

So I have a problem with my galaxy s2 I bought from Craigslist I was really careless until I came home and notice that the phone does have any screws in it but everything work perfect but I notice that my auto brightness doesnt work...the proximity sensor does work I did use the app called arodone on market to test all the sensor everything had the number jumping but the light sensor stay at 10 I think so my question is it is possible to damage the light sensor without damage the proximity sensor please help me
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using XDA App

auto brightness is screwey on this phne. So just change brigtness yourself

Proximity Sensor calibration?

is there anyway to calibrate the proximity sensor on the sensation, not 100% sure thats my problem but worth a try if poss

bradmax57 said:
is there anyway to calibrate the proximity sensor on the sensation, not 100% sure thats my problem but worth a try if poss
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Would like to know this as well.Proximity and light sensors not working properly on my Sensation (only occasionally).

I'd like to know how to recalibrate / get it functioning again.

Yes,i like to know that to.
Still having problems with both proximity and light sensors...

The proximity and light sensors cannot be calibrated, as they put off specific amounts of voltages based on results from the input. It is up to the ROM/Kernel to interpret the voltages from the sensors as usable values to produced the desired results. If you wish, you can download a testing program such as AndroSensor to view the interpreted sensor readings.

IR I frared beacon/sensor always active?

I noticed the other night as I was using my pixel 2 and viewing a security camera monitor when it's infra-red/night vision was active that the IR beacon on the front of my phone pulses regularly even when I am not using the front camera of my phone, and don't have a camera app running at the time. Does anyone know why the phone is using the IR light and sensor when I'm not using the phones front camera?

I don't think the pixel 2 has an ir on it.

leveleyed said:
I noticed the other night as I was using my pixel 2 and viewing a security camera monitor when it's infra-red/night vision was active that the IR beacon on the front of my phone pulses regularly even when I am not using the front camera of my phone, and don't have a camera app running at the time. Does anyone know why the phone is using the IR light and sensor when I'm not using the phones front camera?
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Are you talking about the notification LED that sits in the top left hand corner or the camera LED flash? Your confusing me with this infrared/IR business. The pixel 2 doesnt have infrared.

enzyne said:
Are you talking about the notification LED that sits in the top left hand corner or the camera LED flash? Your confusing me with this infrared/IR business. The pixel 2 doesnt have infrared.
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No, I am certain it is not the notification LED. That is visible in normal lighting conditions. What I am referring to is only visible in night vision, which uses an infrared light and sensor. So this is clearly a blinking infrared light on the top of the front/face of the phone. I believe it is normally used to detect the distance of subject matter to help adjust the front camera focus depth.
Also, I don't know how the "n" in infrared got deleted after I finished typing in the rest of the title for this post, but I assure you that when I typed the word it showed up as "infrared" not "I frared". And now I can't seem to figure out how to edit the title of the post, so I guess it's stuck like this.
I'm starting to wonder if I've stumbled upon something that may be evidence that the phone is always using the front-facing camera - even when the user isn't using the camera or any app that uses the camera. I had my fiancée also come into the room so I could see if the same happened with her iPhone 6. On hers, no light on the front was active until she unlocked the phone. But as soon as she did, an infrared light on the face of it stayed illuminated *constantly*, whereas the one on my pixel 2 just flashes periodically.
My inner conspiracy theorist is starting to wonder WTF is going on here, and why these sensor arrays are active even when the front camera isn't in use.
I'm hoping a well-informed Android or Pixel 2 developer will see this and respond to address these concerns.

leveleyed said:
No, I am certain it is not the notification LED. That is visible in normal lighting conditions. What I am referring to is only visible in night vision, which uses an infrared light and sensor. So this is clearly a blinking infrared light on the top of the front/face of the phone. I believe it is normally used to detect the distance of subject matter to help adjust the front camera focus depth.
Also, I don't know how the "n" in infrared got deleted after I finished typing in the rest of the title for this post, but I assure you that when I typed the word it showed up as "infrared" not "I frared". And now I can't seem to figure out how to edit the title of the post, so I guess it's stuck like this.
I'm starting to wonder if I've stumbled upon something that may be evidence that the phone is always using the front-facing camera - even when the user isn't using the camera or any app that uses the camera. I had my fiancée also come into the room so I could see if the same happened with her iPhone 6. On hers, no light on the front was active until she unlocked the phone. But as soon as she did, an infrared light on the face of it stayed illuminated *constantly*, whereas the one on my pixel 2 just flashes periodically.
My inner conspiracy theorist is starting to wonder WTF is going on here, and why these sensor arrays are active even when the front camera isn't in use.
I'm hoping a well-informed Android or Pixel 2 developer will see this and respond to address these concerns.
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That's interesting. I will try with my phone and nest camera and see if it acts the same on mine.

I just tested it again, holding the phone at varying angles from the security camera, activating and deactivating its night vision/IR mode to see the difference. I recorded a video of it and will post a link tomorrow. When infrared is active, there is a clearly visible blinking light located in the center of the top of the phone just above the speaker bar (the one to the right of the front camera).
I'm really curious to get to the bottom of this so that I can dismiss the paranoia that big brother is constantly watching me through my phone's camera.

leveleyed said:
I just tested it again, holding the phone at varying angles from the security camera, activating and deactivating its night vision/IR mode to see the difference. I recorded a video of it and will post a link tomorrow. When infrared is active, there is a clearly visible blinking light located in the center of the top of the phone just above the speaker bar (the one to the right of the front camera).
I'm really curious to get to the bottom of this so that I can dismiss the paranoia that big brother is constantly watching me through my phone's camera.
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?It's the proximity sensor.

ajrty33 said:
?It's the proximity sensor.
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Exactly!!
But why is the proximity sensory active all the time? Is it so the Ambient display doesn't turn on when face down?

oSandmaNo said:
Exactly!!
But why is the proximity sensory active all the time? Is it so the Ambient display doesn't turn on when face down?
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Its constantly trying to see if your phone is up to your ear or not.

I'm also wondering why the phone would need to have the proximity sensor active when I'm not using Ambient mode, and not currently engaged in a call. There's no need for it to be using the proximity sensor when I'm just browsing my home screen or using some other app. My phone isn't configured to turn off the screen if I set it face down for awhile or anything like that. So there shouldn't be anything using the proximity sensor.

This is common in modern phones, it's checking if you're holding it, if it if is by your face, in your pocket it allows gestures like wave to wake
Get used to it, it's not going away.

mrkhigh said:
This is common in modern phones, it's checking if you're holding it, if it if is by your face, in your pocket it allows gestures like wave to wake
Get used to it, it's not going away.
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But the pixel doesn't have any of those features.

if u want to turn the sensor, disable all option in ambient display.

koax88 said:
if u want to turn the sensor, disable all option in ambient display.
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Nope. I tested that a few months ago (this isn't the first time this has been spotted). You can turn the ambient display off completely and the sensor is still active.
Unless of course they've realised in the meanwhile that this is pointless and fixed it in a software update - I've not retested it recently.

Large Hadron said:
Nope. I tested that a few months ago (this isn't the first time this has been spotted). You can turn the ambient display off completely and the sensor is still active.
Unless of course they've realised in the meanwhile that this is pointless and fixed it in a software update - I've not retested it recently.
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I Just tested my phone, the sensor did not blink at all if u turn off all setting in the ambient Display section. Even double tap to wake will make the sensor blink. I noticed this since 8.0 tho.
Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

oSandmaNo said:
But the pixel doesn't have any of those features.
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It certainly does. I use it to keep the screen off when my phone, in an Otterbox Defender, is in the holster, or when I lay it down face down. Both the front and rear cameras can see into the infrared. Just aim a TV remote at them when any camera app is running and press a button and you'll see the remote's IR LED going. (It has no IR output, though.)

Sensor next to front cam?

Hi guys,
Noticed a very interesting thing today: suddenly a white light started to pulse next to the front cam every time I was tilting the phone. It was quick 3-4 pulses with strict intervals as if a sensor was working. It didn't pulse when phone was in a fixed position, only when tilting, in all apps.
A reboot fixed this, but I wonder if there is any sensor there that activated because of something? Never experienced this before!
Any thoughts what it can be? Thx.

Sounds like proximity sensor to me.

znel52 said:
Sounds like proximity sensor to me.
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Thanks. I also thought so but the phone didn't turn off the screen when I was placing my finger on that sensor. The proximity sensor should turn the screen off as far as I am aware. Maybe a glitch after doing a video call via Viber?

VirtualWaver said:
Thanks. I also thought so but the phone didn't turn off the screen when I was placing my finger on that sensor. The proximity sensor should turn the screen off as far as I am aware. Maybe a glitch after doing a video call via Viber?
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A glitch with viber thats causing excessive proximity sensor usage. It will eventually burn the pixels around that area like the other post posted today.

Limeybastard said:
A glitch with viber thats causing excessive proximity sensor usage. It will eventually burn the pixels around that area like the other post posted today.
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Thanks for this! I did test my screen and all looks good but this is worrying. However, this only happened once although I use Viber video calls every day.

VirtualWaver said:
Thanks for this! I did test my screen and all looks good but this is worrying. However, this only happened once although I use Viber video calls every day.
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Im going to try this out myself next week and see what's going on. Mine ain't coming until Monday.

Limeybastard said:
A glitch with viber thats causing excessive proximity sensor usage. It will eventually burn the pixels around that area like the other post posted today.
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Hoe bright is it?
Normally it could blink during SOT and with that duty cycle it will outlast many of the other screen pixels.
Or is there something I'm missing???
Are it's pixels IR?

blackhawk said:
Hoe bright is it?
Normally it could blink during SOT and with that duty cycle it will outlast many of the other screen pixels.
Or is there something I'm missing???
Are it's pixels IR?
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Who's a hoe?
Probably much ado about nothing. But I can't test it. , The only thing that came to mind was screen being full brightness and proximity sensor being on for hours causing this. But just a hunch .

Limeybastard said:
A glitch with viber thats causing excessive proximity sensor usage. It will eventually burn the pixels around that area like the other post posted today.
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Click to collapse
Limeybastard said:
Who's a hoe?
Probably much ado about nothing. But I can't test it. , The only thing that came to mind was screen being full brightness and proximity sensor being on for hours causing this. But just a hunch .
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Even at full brightness because it's flashing, it's duty cycle is less than the surrounding pixels plus it will "flash" by darkening its pixels depending on screen color.
If it has specialized IR emitters I could see that happening maybe; if there's a design or manufacturing flaw.
Because it's flashing visible light it would be hard to use a cam to detect IR... which is how I normally check IR emitters.

While it was easily seen on the Note 10 i can't see it on the Note 20

Nastrahl said:
While it was easily seen on the Note 10 i can't see it on the Note 20
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Interesting. Maybe it uses IR diodes?
If it doesn't display when it's active maybe that's why some think it's "burnt out"?
Lol, until someone mentioned the flashing circle I never noticed it.

blackhawk said:
Interesting. Maybe it uses IR diodes?
If it doesn't display when it's active maybe that's why some think it's "burnt out"?
Lol, until someone mentioned the flashing circle I never noticed it.
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I don't know.
I've read that they replaced all the sensors with the front camera, and that′s one of the battery killer since a few were completely passive like the ambiant light one, that's now active.
When a passive sensor needs no electricity to operate, an active needs to, and the camera can't work passively so it drains battery.
They advised to turn off all the features that use the front camera as a sensor like the auto brightness, smart stay (and also what can use the accelerometer like smart alert and raise to turn on the screen), etc. to avoid the process Android System to take to much battery.

Nastrahl said:
While it was easily seen on the Note 10 i can't see it on the Note 20
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Nastrahl said:
I don't know.
I've read that they replaced all the sensors with the front camera, and that′s one of the battery killer since a few were completely passive like the ambiant light one, that's now active.
When a passive sensor needs no electricity to operate, an active needs to, and the camera can't work passively so it drains battery.
They advised to turn off all the features that use the front camera as a sensor like the auto brightness, smart stay (and also what can use the accelerometer like smart alert and raise to turn on the screen), etc. to avoid the process Android System to take to much battery.
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Even passive sensors use some current although it may be in the microamps.
Autobrightness is a trash apk anyway.
Seems highly unlikely that the whole cam be used for these functions if at all.

VirtualWaver said:
Thanks. I also thought so but the phone didn't turn off the screen when I was placing my finger on that sensor. The proximity sensor should turn the screen off as far as I am aware. Maybe a glitch after doing a video call via Viber?
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Not sure if anyone told you this sorry haven't had time to read the thread but I would suggest avoiding viber calls on this phone. The proximity sensor is damaging the screen when on viber. It seems viber is accessing the sensor too aggressively.
Sent from my SM-N986U1 using Tapatalk

warriorvibhu said:
Not sure if anyone told you this sorry haven't had time to read the thread but I would suggest avoiding viber calls on this phone. The proximity sensor is damaging the screen when on viber. It seems viber is accessing the sensor too aggressively.
Sent from my SM-N986U1 using Tapatalk
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You know this is most likely a digital circuit; a fixed voltage of an either high or low value... those values are fixed and don't change. Even firmware can't alter that let alone apks. Duty cycle rate/length maybe.
This urban rumor about the proximity sensor causing screen damage has been around since at least 2015, long before OLED screens.
A Google search yielded nothing except this:
https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-S10/Proximity-sensor-issues-S10-S10/td-p/498492/page/9

blackhawk said:
Even passive sensors use some current although it may be in the microamps.
Autobrightness is a trash apk anyway.
Seems highly unlikely that the whole cam be used for these functions if at all.
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Trash apk ? Sorry i meant the built-in adaptive brightness.
---------- Post added at 01:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:15 AM ----------
blackhawk said:
You know this is most likely a digital circuit; a fixed voltage of an either high or low value... those values are fixed and don't change. Even firmware can't alter that let alone apks. Duty cycle rate/length maybe.
This urban rumor about the proximity sensor causing screen damage has been around since at least 2015, long before OLED screens.
A Google search yielded nothing except this:
https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-S10/Proximity-sensor-issues-S10-S10/td-p/498492/page/9
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I personally never heard about it. Thanks for the insight

Nastrahl said:
Trash apk ? Sorry i meant the built-in adaptive brightness"
I personally never heard about it. Thanks for the insight
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My opinions.
There certainly are long standing Samsung issues that span more then one generation of phones. The proximity sensor trashing the screen doesn't appear to exist at all. If anything it conserves screen life.
Auto brightness was always twitchy even on my S4+.
Auto brightness was never truly adaptive... and still isn't. Lol, all it does is give me a headache and waste resources.
The other thing is I always try to avoid using my phones in direct sunlight. Very rarely do I ever go past 65% brightness.
Direct sunlight+high ambient temperature+high power consumption can really overheat a phone fast.
Even worse...
Auto brightness on+charging+sunlight+accidental screen turn on that's not noticed, can fry a phone in a few minutes. Real easy to do in the car... been there.

blackhawk said:
My opinions.
There certainly are long standing Samsung issues that span more then one generation of phones. The proximity sensor trashing the screen doesn't appear to exist at all. If anything it conserves screen life.
Auto brightness was always twitchy even on my S4+.
Auto brightness was never truly adaptive... and still isn't. Lol, all it does is give me a headache and waste resources.
The other thing is I always try to avoid using my phones in direct sunlight. Very rarely do I ever go past 65% brightness.
Direct sunlight+high ambient temperature+high power consumption can really overheat a phone fast.
Even worse...
Auto brightness on+charging+sunlight+accidental screen turn on that's not noticed, can fry a phone in a few minutes. Real easy to do in the car... been there.
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Thanks, i never thought about that so it's a very valuable information.
Just in case if it can be useful :
A few years ago I found an app called Underburn which is a complete new approach about adaptive brightness.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.out386.underburn
Instead of adjusting the screen brightness from the ambient light, it set it according of the amount of white pixels displayed on screen to avoid binding you, and it doesn't care about sunlight.
The more white is displayed, the more it will dim the screen (by reducing the screen brightness, not by applying a filter ; even if there's also a setting for that if its too bright for you even at the minimum level) by the amount of your choosing.
It can play a role to save battery too somehow.

Nastrahl said:
Thanks, i never thought about that so it's a very valuable information.
Just in case if it can be useful :
A few years ago I found an app called Underburn which is a complete new approach about adaptive brightness.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.out386.underburn
Instead of adjusting the screen brightness from the ambient light, it set it according of the amount of white pixels displayed on screen to avoid binding you, and it doesn't care about sunlight.
The more white is displayed, the more it will dim the screen (by reducing the screen brightness, not by applying a filter ; even if there's also a setting for that if its too bright for you even at the minimum level) by the amount of your choosing.
It can play a role to save battery too somehow.
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Click to collapse
Thank you
I'll take a look at it. I'm running on dark mode but since it's Pie it's not native to all apps like Gmail which burns my eyes out.
*I'm playing with it. It will run on Pie. It takes some time to set up but definitely has potential.
Haven't been able to fairly gauge it's configured battery usage.

Please, I have a problem ...

Please, I have a problem with the proximity sensor not working and I have tried the sensor scanning software and it reads only 5.0cm ... pixel 4a Latest updates

Usama630 said:
Please, I have a problem with the proximity sensor not working and I have tried the sensor scanning software and it reads only 5.0cm ... pixel 4a Latest updates
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I haven't explicitly tested my Pixel 4a, however, on my previous devices, the proximity sensor is basically an On/Off switch. As such, it may read either 5cm or 0cm depending how close you are to the actual sensor. i.e. your device may be OK.

DiamondJohn said:
I haven't explicitly tested my Pixel 4a, however, on my previous devices, the proximity sensor is basically an On/Off switch. As such, it may read either 5cm or 0cm depending how close you are to the actual sensor. i.e. your device may be OK.
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I tried android 10
It also did not work
It only reads 5.0 even when I cover the sensor area.
The problem is that I am from Iraq and we do not have any sale guarantee
It's a big disappointment for me

Usama630 said:
I tried android 10
It also did not work
It only reads 5.0 even when I cover the sensor area.
The problem is that I am from Iraq and we do not have any sale guarantee
It's a big disappointment for me
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I dont think it should matter whuich cutry you are from, because it is a manufacturer warranty. not a point of sale warranty.
The Device has support built into the rom in Settings>Tips & Support and then select "Contact Us" I was shocked how helpful they try to be, and it was clearly not based in my country. I complained about some tiny bug and they wanted to commence the process to replace my device (which would not of helped as it was software)

you did not understand what I mean..