Does the Lumia 925 have a notification LED? No, but...

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We've seen some questions appear on the Internet surrounding the little red light that's barely visible on the Lumia 925. We've attempted to capture the light on camera, but it's too dim to really show up. Hopefully the above image will give you an idea where this mysterious element resides on the Nokia flagship. Could this be a notification LED? Or has Nokia implemented some magical technology that no one can yet comprehend?

Unfortunately, we have to reveal that this light is in fact not an LED for notifications. What you're looking at is indeed the proximity sensor. That's right, you'll see this little beauty when glance screen is currently active or if you're in a call. Try it out for yourself: turn your Lumia 925 display off, allowing glance screen to kick in. Notice the little red light next to the camera? Now place (or hover) your hand over this light and your screen will completely turn off.

Taking your hand away should wake up glance screen once again. Try this in a call too, put your hand over the light when a call is active and the display will turn off, remove your hand and the screen comes back to life. You can even carry this action out with some speed to tease and play with the sensor, expereincing a light show in front of your eyes. You're witnessing magic at work!

So no, the Nokia Lumia 925 does not sport a notification LED. Sorry, folks.

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds

Rich Edmonds is Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him over on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.
109 Comments
  • I thought the start buton was a LED??
  • That would be a great feature for microsoft to mandate over all WP devices, to have the logo flash for notifications.
  • I saw one video that showed the win logo is flashing in the background.
  • +1
  • Yeah, what's up with that?
  • So does he gets notified at 0:10 ?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhykBMh5IkQ
  • wrong video the presenter has a lot of Nokia Lumia 925 on the table and while he doing his review we saw one of the phone win logo flashing bright.
  • Try this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7e3wlYglZI look at 1:20 you will see one of the 925 blinking on the background.
  • some body almost copyed my win nokia commercial idea, almost.
  • Probably faulty LED...
    Typical Nokia build quality.
  • I really don't know if it is faulty or not.
  • Check this one out at 1:20
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7e3wlYglZI
  • If it was faulty, its still there, isn't it?
  • yea i know what you mean typical android or apple fan buy you.
  • Nope, showed up in that iPhone Zombie ad too.
     
  • Agreed...
  • amazing awesome incredible unbelievable first comment
  • No its not XD
  • I'm sorry 
  • Lol you spent so much time writing your worthless comment that you failed in epic proportions, making you not only look really stupid but ensuring that you will be laughed at for generations to come.
  • Some of the vids I've seen the home button is blinking.
  • This is just a developer tool.
  • I don't see how a physical Lumia 925 is a developer tool
  • From Mr. Rubino: "It's meant for developers at Nokia to test battery life//power consumption and shows when the phone is in a low-power state."
     
    Trust me, I was excited about it before Rubino crushed our dreams. :(
  • +1 Maybe they'll do it later, but it's not planned now AFAIK.
  • perhaps the homebrew community can make something to do it?
  • 925 lumia windows home button blinks only when battery is low.....and about tht faint red light is of proximity....all lumia has tht feature but not that blinking feature..
  • I ws about to say that thatd be cool:P
  • Would be cool if Nokia could push out a firmware update,to make the home button a notification light.
  • They should really turn the Home button into a notification LED.
  • The 920 and 925 are capable of it at least, but I'm sure other (even HTC and Samsung) devices have the hardware capabilities too, per some sort of secret Microsoft request to enable the feature EVENTUALLY... (Much like FM radio.)
  • It's the one feature I've been waiting to appear on a Nokia WP.
  • Yes, I would argue that it's almost a scandal if they don't do this. A phone with lots of LEDs but no notifications? Perhaps it hasn't been enabled since there is no notification center yet. Hard to imagine that a notification center would arrive and not be tied to the existing LEDs. Also these lights are on now at full blast at night when the phone is charging on my stand. Shining me right in the face when I sleep. That cannot be right either.
  • CHARGE YOUR PHONE.
  • I was thinking the same thing.
  • I did afterwards, shouldn't really matter how charged my phone is. Since I'm using it as my daily driver, it's going to get low before the nightly charge up ;-)
  • I need more notifications icons, 5 are few
  • Can't agree more with that.
    Thinking in can be like 8-10 VERTICALLY on the right side of the lock screen.
  • Yes indeed, or horizontally scrolling or something. But 5 are way to few...
  • Well that sucks...
  • Same thing HTC 7 Trophy has when in a call.
  • This is really old, my HTC 8X does it too. But it's really nice how wp8 uses the sensor! When you've a message and it is in your pocket, the screen won't light up. And if you grab the phone out of your pocket within like one minute after the message, the screen automatically turns on. Never seen another OS doing such thing.
  • It has been there since the inception of Windows Phone (actually a lot before that but that's not the point). My old Focus has this too. It has definitely improved since WP8 though.
  • I had it too on my LG Optimus 7. WP7 was already a great OS. WP8 is amazing but on the other side it is still missing (really basic) features and there are a lot of bugs. I hope that 'other' is fixed in GDR2...
  • Yes my focus does when I get a text or if im in a phone call. Handy indeed.
  • This feature existed in Windows Mobile. Smh
  • Initially it was pretty impressive. But it wont do that if the notification was a little old, which kinda sucks :-/ Would prefer it light up my screen the moment it senses I pick the phone up/pull out of my pocket (regardless of how old the notification is)
  • That's going to drain your battery really fast because the sensors have to stay on the entire time. So it is for a reason it only works with new messages.
  • Noticed the same thing on my wife's Note 2. Dim red light that you can see in the dark. I told her it's a government spy cam.........
  • It probably is. WPC is even in on the scam. :P
  • A lot of dust in that ear piece...
  • I think its the same for the NL920
  • It is the same for every smartphone with an proximity sensor :P
  • I would love a notification LED of some sort, even if it is only the home button. That is one thing I miss from Android.
  • Nokia always has been used the central Button like notification LED (Symbian)...  Maybe the next time, the watch on screen is the first step
  • The 8x had a true LED light since day one, but no one talks about it. With some modifications from guys at HTC, this can be a real notifications light which is in my opinion is very useful.
    I'm not so sure about the possibility of making this happen but I can't see why not...
  • Now it is indeed only used for battery notification. But the led isn't really noticeable from a distance, so for a notification led it isn't really great. It also can only show green and red. Start button would be much nicer as notification led.
  • It flashes / pulses when you have a missed call too.
  • No, that what he was talking about: the led on the 8X isn't used as a notification led. I know it, I own the device...
  • On the HD7 it flashes green for missed calls, then the rest are for battery status. I assumed it was the same on 8X
  • No, not even on missed calls. That's why we think it is so strange :P
  • So did the HD7
  • Go to the website and make the suggestion; I did. Also ask that their next WP not be a knock off of the One, but a 5" 8X as its design is better than any other right now outside of button feedback & battery life. I love the way it appears to be all screen and the matte polycarbonate body is perfect along with its supreme thinness'. All they need is proper advertisement along with apps. I also expressed that to them.
  • Man someone up their just made a really awesome point .. Why doesnt the Windows logo sort of glow (fade in / ease out) slowly when you have notifications ... that would be really really nice .. if you ask me :/
  • They should make it multi colored LEDs
  • Im in love with that concept. Lets make a petition! I think they should at least be forced to do something as SIMPLE as this. They wouldn't need to modify any hardware so no excuses. !!! Mwahahaha!
  • It might be the case that the leds can not be controlled seperatly on all devices. I depends on the hardware. 
    But actually i wouldnt mind if all 3 leds could blink.
  • Who cares.
  • I do.
  • I do alot of traveling on my motorcycle,and have my 920 in a clear pouch on my tank bag.Would love to have a notification light for missed calls or text messages.
  • When is the 925 review coming out...?
  • Windows Phone really needs notification light.
  • It already has it on HTC phones, since WP7
  • Anyone know how to figure out which number texted me when I have a contact with two mobile phone numbers?
  • No idea, having the same problem.
  • Same here, lol
  • Yea, press the  <- ->  (the button used to switch between fb, live chat, sms) , and check which number is highligted in your selected accent color, that's the number from which you received the text.
  • Notification light would be nice. Bring back the breathing light
  • you don't need to concentrate on a windows logo as a notification light, when you actually have all the display to show anything (on AMOLED screen, as on that one only the lit pixels are consuming energy) - anyone remembering NOKIA SLEEPING SCREEN app on symbian?
  • Who needs a notification LED when the screen could show a notification indicator? It's an AMOLED screen. Turning on just a view pixels to display the notification icon would consume almost no power.
  • I'm afraid "waking up" the CPU/GPU to control the screen is way to power consuming to efficiently use the screen as a notification LED.
    Anywho, all my older phones - Nokia E50, Blackberry Bold, HTC Mozart (WP7) -  had green/red notification LEDs and it was really handy. I can't understand why suddenly all OEMs dropped such a useful feature.
  • I will not read another 925 article unless it's a review or announces the US release date.smh Com'n Nokia!
  • T-Mo should've given release info a LONG time ago...
  • +925
  • There was something like this on my kin, it activated the proximity sensor to prevent from turning on in pocket
  • All these 925 updates are nice but what we're all REALLY waiting for is some US release info.....
  • For real though. None of this will really matter once we get the device. Whenever that is...
  • I thought users were referring to another light. My Lumia 710's proximity sensor lights up red all the time! S:
  • Okay, out of topic, but interesting:
    I can't say how many people know this, bur your camera can detect infrared light. To see this, send something using infrared from your cellphone (I know there's no infrared on devices nowadays, so boot up that old Nokia N95 or N73 lying in your drawer) and switch on your camera and watch the infrared port through it. You'll see blinking bluish light. Interesting, huh? ;-)
  • the little red light that's visible on the Lumia 920 too.
  • As much as I hated the buggy Nexus One (or was it buggy android?), I did like (and still miss) the ability to customize the color of the trackball for different notifications.
  • Smh
  • .it's present in my L720..
  • The Galaxy S4 (and the Galaxy Note 2 in the diagnostics menu) can use this LED to emit a barcode that the laser barcode readers can scan. When this mode is on it becomes plainly visible on my Note 2.
  • What is so new in this? U can see this light on nokia 710 too.. I noticed it much earlier.. And it blinks when notifictn arrives...
  • i would love to see double tap wake the screen
     
    most people can never figure out how to turn on my phones screen as its on the side..which is good coz i dont want dumb people to use my phone but double tap to wake the screen would be slick
  • Notification Light and Notification Centre is what Windows Phone 8 needs and life couldn't be better.
     
    i couldnt care less about instagram..lol
  • http://youtu.be/BNUEbaRLdfw
  • Even i have seen the small red LED in my Lumia 520.. I can see it only in dark..
  • Incredible, we are beggin and/or amazed for a... notification LED?!?!?
    I mean, a common feature in dumbphones from early 2000's.
    we suck!!!
     
  • Its not us that suck. The consumer can never suck. If after years we don't get wat we want... Who "really" sucks.
  • The NEW Notification Light is not on the right top, its in the Windows Logo
     
    with the new GDR2Nokia Update
     
     
  • Well, I'm just not really sure about that. But still, that gorgeous AMOLED display could work as a low power notification hub
  • 1. Saying the light is a proximity sensor is PARTIALLY true. This is an infrared LED that emits light for the sensor to detect proximity based on reflection. If you take an infrared light and shine it into the sensor, the screen will turn off. 2. The Samsung focus and most phones have the same light and sensor configuration. They usually only come on during a phone call though and we typically don't notice them, but the dim red light is quite common.
  • Yup, I asked about this more than a month ago....
    http://forums.wpcentral.com/nokia-lumia-925/226538-possible-led-notifica...
  • Why doesn´t microsoft does what we suggested on suggestion box put the windows hardware button blink when we have notifications it an LED so its the best notification LED, make it happen why do we need another we allready have it just programme it for god sake!
  • breathing notification light from the old symbian
    Check out on youtube E71 or E72 breathing light.
  • its the proximity sensor or the sunlight adjusting sensor from which the red dot shows up.. it evn comes in my lumia 920
  • Lots of places I've seen advertising this for sale in London, yet to find any with an actual display model though