How to use your screen as a flashlight (no LED needed)

Plenty of tablets and a fair few phones ship without a camera flash — and even with one, a screen sometimes makes the better light: broader, softer, dimmable, and pointed at your face instead of away from it.

01Screen light in one tap

Screen Light mode pushes your display to full brightness on a pure white field — on a modern phone that's a genuinely useful lamp for a dark room, a keyhole, or the back of a cabinet. Because it's a screen and not a point LED, the light is broad and shadow-soft, which often beats the harsh cone of a flash up close.

Screen light mode for devices without an LED flash
Screen light mode for devices without an LED flash

02A light you can shape

Unlike an LED, the screen's color is yours to choose: shift it warm for a bedside glow, pick a color for ambiance, or dim it far below any torch's minimum. The night light preset pairs soft lighting with a timer that switches itself off after you're asleep.

03The original ring light

A bright screen pointed at you is exactly how "front flash" selfies work — use Screen Light as a fill light for video calls from dark rooms, mirror checks, or reading a paper map at night without blinding your night vision (warm + dim is the trick).

04Every mode, no LED required

The app's toolbox runs on the screen wherever the LED is missing: SOS Morse flashes the display, the fast flasher and disco mode strobe it in colors, and the LED board scrolls glowing text. A flashless tablet turns out to be a perfectly good party light.

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