After the release of the first Android 13 developer preview build for a while, it seems that plenty of new features and improvements took place. It includes dynamic theming for third-party app icons, automatic clearing clipboard, improved screen savers, a Quick Tap flashlight toggle, scanning QR codes easier, improved lock screen, and more. Here in this article, we’re taking a dig at the flashlight feature which basically controls the brightness level of the LED flash.
Recently, one of the well-known tipsters Mishaal Rahman did mention that Android 13 introduces two new APIs. Such as ‘getTorchStrengthLevel’ and ‘turnOnTorchWithStrengthLevel’ to the CameraManager class. The ‘getTorchStrengthLevel’ API offers the LED flash brightness level. While the second API offers control settings for the brightness whatever your device hardware supports.
In both API combinations, Android 13 users will be able to adjust the brightness level of the LED flash on their devices rather than simply turning the LED flash on or off. Cool! Isn’t it? To recall, this particular feature is already available on Samsung Galaxy devices and iPhone models too.
However, it’s better late than never. So, we obviously greet the specific feature of Android 13 that’ll come in handy for most users in their daily usage. Unfortunately, some Android 13 OS running devices might not be able to use that feature due to hardware limitations. If your device has a camera hardware abstraction layer (HAL) limitation then you may not be able to use this feature.
Older versions of the camera device HAL do not mention brightness control as part of their flashlight control functions. However, it seems that a later version has been spotted in the Android 13 Developer Preview for the Google Pixel 6 Pro that’ll support the two new APIs. It means non-Pixel Android OEMs will have to implement the new camera HAL version for flashlight brightness control if they want.
However, the chances are high that other OEMs may not work on this feature of the devices respectively. It’s because the Google Requirements Freeze program isn’t imposing any HAL upgrade demands for OEMs to upgrade their devices to Android 13. Whereas all the newly released devices or upcoming devices running on Android 13 out-of-the-box will most likely support this feature.
We should also mention that Google mandates newer camera HAL version support in its beta version of the vendor software requirements (VSR) program for Android 13. As mentioned, if you use a Samsung or Apple smartphone then you’ve most probably used the flashlight brightness adjusting feature.
