Vibrate for new E-mail when phone set to vibrate

[gadgetfreak]

Galaxy S8 (used to have an S7 with the same issue). I want to only have the LED light to flash with a new e-mail - no sound or vibrate. Works fine when my overall phone profile (Sound Mode) is set to Sound or Mute/Silent. But when it is set to vibrate, my phone vibrates with every new e-mail. Any way to stop that? Thanks. -Evan.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Do you have a sound set in your notifications? If so, Android may be "replacing" the sound with a vibration.

The app's code only requests a vibration when vibration is enabled in the app's or the account's settings.

[gadgetfreak]

Thank you for your reply. So what settings would I use in Aquamail to accomplish what I went (LED all the time but never a sound or vibration - regardless of phone profile being used)?

[gadgetfreak]

To further add to this. I read online with the S7 and I see it for the S8 as well that the LED only lights if there is a sound associated with the notification. So I had to upload a 1-sec dead-air wav file to use as my notification tone for AM. I am not sure that makes a difference. That action got it to work properly (LED only, no vibrate sound) except that it still vibrates when the phone is in Vibrate mode. Any suggestions? Thanks.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

We only have so much control over notifications - i.e. Aqua (or any other app) creates a "notification" object with some parameters:

please Android please flash the LED with this color, and use this vibration pattern (or not), and this sound (or maybe none)

The rest is handled by Android, and there is variability depending on Android version and manufacturer specific "improvements".

In particular, Android 7 ignores the LED if there is no sound --

-- except on a Nexus 5x (and maybe other Nexus phones) where Google added a setting to "always pulse the LED", except on HTC M10 (which I owned, and maybe other HTC phones) where the LED just works without requiring a setting.......................................................

And we have no way to control this -- we can only set those "data items" in notification objects, but then Android may decide to ignore some of them, or replace sound with vibration etc.

In some cases it makes sense, and you want Android to take care of it directly (e.g. a notification with sound + phone in vibrate mode), but --

-- Google's decision that LEDs should only work in combination with a sound I just don't understand. And apparently I'm not alone. But that doesn't change anything either, unfortunately.

[gadgetfreak]

I understand. And my solution of a 1-second dead air wav file seems to do the trick. But does that have anything to do with the fact that AquaMail causes a vibration when the phone is set to Vibrate mode even though no vibration is configured in AM?

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: AquaMail causes a vibration when the phone is set to Vibrate

That's Android seeing that there is a sound (your dummy one) - and replacing it with vibration.

[gadgetfreak]

Got it. And changing the sound to silent will mean no LED. All thanks to Android. Oh well.

[Kostya Vasilyev]

Re: And changing the sound to silent will mean no LED.

Changing the sound to a "dummy" file which is all silent but still exists and is selected -- should get you the LED, but will vibrate when the phone is in vibrate mode.

Selecting "no sound" (which I guess is what you called "silent") -- no LED on most devices with Android 7.