How to turn on Front flashlight(not the rear one) of a android device

Question

I developed a simple application to turn ON/OFF flashlight. But I couldn't find a way to turn on front flashlight of a device(if available).

Code for availability check:

boolean hasCameraFlash = getPackageManager().hasSystemFeature(PackageManager.FEATURE_CAMERA_FLASH);

My code for turn ON is:

@RequiresApi(api = Build.VERSION_CODES.M)
private void flashLightOn() {
    try {
        String cameraId = cameraManager.getCameraIdList()[0];
        cameraManager.setTorchMode(cameraId, true);
    } catch (CameraAccessException ignored) {
    }
}

Is it possible to turn on front flashlight of device without turning on camera. Any help will be appreciated.

(Please note that I'm a newcomer to android development)

Answer 1

For Checking availability of flash in the device:

You can use the following:

context.getPackageManager().hasSystemFeature(PackageManager.FEATURE_CAMERA_FLASH);

which will return true if a flash is available, false if not.

See:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/pm/PackageManager.html for more information.

For turning on/off flashlight:

I googled out and got this about android.permission.FLASHLIGHT. Android manifests' permission looks promising:

<!-- Allows access to the flashlight -->
 <permission android:name="android.permission.FLASHLIGHT"
             android:permissionGroup="android.permission-group.HARDWARE_CONTROLS"
             android:protectionLevel="normal"
             android:label="@string/permlab_flashlight"
             android:description="@string/permdesc_flashlight" />

Code Snippet to turn on camera flashlight.

Camera cam = Camera.open();     
Parameters p = cam.getParameters();
p.setFlashMode(Parameters.FLASH_MODE_TORCH);
cam.setParameters(p);
cam.startPreview();

Code snippet to turn off camera led light.

cam.stopPreview();
  cam.release();