How do you usually get notified when you have a few missed calls, unanswered WhatsApp messages and a reminder to leave for the next meeting on time?
On most devices, there is the ever blinking LED light on the front that does that.
Based on how complex a user is, this can be customized so that say a red light means missed call, a green light means unread messages and so on and so on. Others like Sony and Oppo have toyed with the idea of a stylish glowing strip of light at the bottom that appears to have struck a chord with users. Some have gone ahead to bake the same functionality into the capacitive home button albeit with some fancy names like breathing or pulsating light (hello Tecno).
Samsung, which so far, has belonged to the earlier group of those who’ve stuck with the front LED light for better for worse seems to be itching to do something new.
That new thing appears to be the Smart Glow feature that has been talked about in the tech press for the last few weeks thanks to it leaking every now and then be it in patent filings or in rumours about upcoming devices. And now we have an almost real device that is tipped to be one of the first to ship with Smart Glow: the upcoming Galaxy J2 (2016).
Smart Glow, as can be seen from the above image, consists of a ring of light around the back camera that lights up to indicate unchecked alerts.
The Galaxy J2 (2016) is the expected successor to last year’s Galaxy J2, one of the many devices Samsung released to cater to the budget market segment served by its Galaxy J series. It will be unveiled in a week’s time in India (where it also unveiled the first generation J2) and later on start showing up in other markets around the world.
Other than the Galaxy J2 (2016), Samsung is expected to make the feature available on other new devices as well. On premium Samsung devices, the Smart Glow feature is expected to do much more than tell the user when they have new notifications.
