Android 13 may let you change the brightness of the flashlight

Android 13 may bring a useful new feature. Esper Blog Editor Mishaal Rahman found a few key additions to the API in the Android 13 code: getTorchStrengthLevel and turnOnTorchWithStrengthLevel. As you can guess from the names, here are the codes that will allow you to adjust the brightness of the flashlight on Android phones.

May not come to all smartphones running Android 13

The new feature will allow you to adjust the flashlight’s brightness level from the minimum to the maximum set by the hardware. Most phones now only turn on the flashlight using the setTorchMode API, but in Android 13 the brightness can be controlled in more detail. However, it seems that this feature will not come to all smartphones running Android 13.

As Mishaal Rahman pointed out, the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), the structure that defines the interface between the operating system and the underlying hardware, will need to be updated. Because the latest versions 2.7 and 3.7 of the HAL build in the Android Open Source Project do not mention the flashlight brightness control. However, version 3.8 available in Android 13 Developer Preview for Pixel 6 Pro shows that HAL support has been added for two new APIs. Therefore, device manufacturers will likely need to implement version 3.8 of the ICameraDevice to support the brightness control APIs.

Let’s not go without mentioning that this feature is available in some Samsung smartphone models.