Turn light on/off by shaking the phone

[WPFilmmaker]

I got used to this feature with an old and now unmaintained app from f-droid (called "Flashlight). Evey time I need to use SF I try shaking and then remember it doesn't work lol. Basically you vigorously shake the phone and light turns on automatically, it s really useful when you don't have time to unlock the phone, find SF icon,click on it and click on the button to turn it on. I suppose it uses gyroscope or??

Edit: forgot to specify that of course shaking should also turn light off :)

[chronos000]

For many years I have used a couple of flashlight apps that did this, and I would like to advise on some important usability aspects to consider when implementing this:

• Sense shaking only while in lockscreen, and only while the screen is on. Triggering the flashlight everywhere is a complete mess, and a usability nightmare. The usual case to turn the flashlight would be: press the power button to turn the screen on, and then shake the phone. This can all be done without looking at the phone.
  • Turn flashlight off if the screen is turned off (by pressing the power button). Very useful way to turn off. If it was up to me, I would completely disable turning off by shaking and only allow turning the flashlight off by turning the screen off with the power button.
• Option to vibrate when shake is detected (briefly before turning the flashlight on). Gives tactile feedback when you want to start your flashlight without loosing sight of what you are looking at. Most importantly, it allows you to shake your phone with your hand in a comfortable position, and then rising the phone after the flashlight is turned on.
• Timer to automatically turn flashlight off (in case it got turned on by mistake, and nobody is watching). Possible options from 30sec to 30min. This helps to avoid draining the battery accidentally.
• Help the user figure out the correct battery optimization configuration for the app to work correctly. Idelally, the app won't need a special exception for battery optimization. But if it does (which it most likely will), then help and guide the user to configure or disable the battery optimization accordingly.

Hope this helps to bring this very useful feature to the app.