Flashlight turns on in pocket

[Chris Smith]

The option to activate the flashlight by holding the power button when the screen is off is a nice feature. Unfortunately it sometimes turns on when in my pocket because my hip hits the power button. It would be a nice feature to only have the light turn on if the proximity sensor doesn't detect anything present.

[Mikanoshi]

It is not possible, because when you press power with your hand you cover the proximity sensor too :)

[Chris Smith]

I was referring to the front sensor (item 7 in the diagram below). I don't normally cover it when hitting the power button on the top, and if that option were enabled, I would definitely prefer to learn to make sure it wasn't covered while turning on the flashlight, as opposed to having it turn on accidentally now.

Source article: http://www.pdfuu.com/htc-one-m8-manual-user-guide-and-operating-instruction.html

[Chris Smith]

It looks like issue #136 has a similar problem of the flashlight turning on while in a pocket. So I'm not the only one encountering this problem :)

[Mikanoshi]

The only problem is Android cannot just get a value from sensor, it requires a listener that will continuously get sensor value changes. If it sends a value immediately after attaching listener, then I'll add this feature as an option. Edit: It sends an event, but its first value is always 'Far' from sensor, so it's unusable... Only having proximity sensor enabled all the time will work.

[Chris Smith]

I'm definitely not an Android developer, but wonder if the code could implement a sensor listener that would would only check the proximity sensor when it detects a transition of the power button to selected. The sensor framework discussed below might have some useful references.

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/sensors/sensors_overview.html

[Mikanoshi]

Sensor listener reacts only to value changes, so it should be active before you even press the power button to know the current state. Don't know if it's a bug with the initial value not indicating current state correctly, but it's a fact, so adding a single proximity check option is not possible. I don't want to keep sensor enabled all the time during sleep.