Developer: Android 13 includes APIs to adjust LED lamp intensity

Developers at device management company Esper have discovered that the developer version of Android 13 includes two new APIs. This makes it possible for Android 13 users to gradually adjust the intensity of the LED light on their device.

The company’s blog page states that Google has added two APIs to the first developer version of Android 13 that can affect the LED light intensity on an Android device. Those are the getTorchStrenghtLevel and turnOnTorchWithStrengthLevel api. Thanks to these APIs, both apps and the Android operating system can gradually adjust and control the intensity of the built-in LED lamp. Previously, apps could shine the built-in LED light through the setTorchMode api. However, it was not possible to adjust the intensity of the LED via that API, although various OEMs built this function into their devices separately.

The developers write that not every device that will support Android 13 will also be able to address the new APIs. After all, manufacturers must also update the hardware abstraction layer to version 3.8 for this. That does not seem to be an obligation for the time being, according to Esper’s team.

In response to this news item, the editors of 9to5Google developed a demo that shows that the function already works on the Pixel 6 devices. They couldn’t get the demo app to work on a Pixel 5 or Pixel 4A XL.