Samsung wants to make sure you’re aware when notifications come in. If your device is turned face down then you’ll still see the edges of the screen light up thanks to the Galaxy S9 Edge Lighting feature. But not everyone wants this feature enabled so here are the steps that will let you disable it.
When Samsung first started selling ‘edge’ versions of its flagships they needed a way to entice the customer base to buy them. One of their ways of doing this was to add in a software feature that they call Edge Lighting. This is quite useful for anyone who likes to keep their phone face down on a table/desk as you cannot see the LED notification light or the always on display feature this way.
Since the edges of the screen curve up along the sides, this will allow parts of the screen to light up when a notification comes in.
With Samsung isolates this to the edges of the screen it helps to alert the owner of the device that there’s a notification that just came in. As Samsung phased out the edge versions of their flagships they ended up keeping the curved display which is now known as Infinity Display. So they have kept this software feature that allows everyone who purchases one of their flagships to take advantage of it. However, this isn’t something that everyone wants and it can be quite annoying for some as it is turned on by default.
So, if you aren’t a fan of this feature then follow these steps below to turn off the Galaxy S9 Edge Lighting alerts.
Disabling the Galaxy S9 Edge Lighting
- Launch the Settings application
- Then tap on the Display option
- And scroll down a bit to tap on the Edge Screen option
- So you can finally tap the toggle next to the Edge Lighting feature on display
Explanation
What started off as a special feature to help sell the Edge versions of phones has become quite the useful feature for anyone who buys a Samsung flagship these days. I know this, and the Edge Panels were something that really convinced people to pay more for the edge versions of the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines when they were first split up. It was just a great way to initially sell the idea on why someone would want a smartphone with a front display that had curved edges.
It’s not idea to put a smartphone face down unless you are using a protective case that adds an air gap barrier between the surface and the smartphone. Even then, a lot of people don’t mind putting their phone face down (without a protective case) as they’re quick to upgrade to a new device when something tickles their fancy. I personally prefer it as I’m always using a case and being alerted to notifications in this way is extremely useful for me. But, if you don’t want it to be enabled then you’ll want to launch the Settings app.
From here, look for the Display option that should be just a few settings down from the top. Now, you’ll want to scroll down a bit until you reveal the Edge Screen option so you can tap on it. From here you are given a preview of the two basic Edge Screen features that are both enabled by default. I’ll talk about the Edge Panels in a future guide but today we’ll focus on the Edge Lighting feature. You can see a preview demo of how this feature works via the animation at the top and you’ll find a toggle for it down below.
So to disable and turn off the Galaxy S9 Edge Lighting feature we simply need to tap on the toggle for it here. However, we can also choose a couple of customization features here by tapping on the Edge Lighting option (just the text for it). There are a few options we can pick here but I wish Samsung offered more. It seems like one of the few features that helps the company stand out from the competition so they really should flesh out its options. If you don’t care for it though, just tap on the toggle for it and you’ll never see it again.