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nogrep edited this page Jun 14, 2026 · 2 revisions

Configuration

Everything is in /data/adb/modules/torchbutton/config.sh. Defaults are sensible — you only need to touch this file if auto-detection picks the wrong torch node, or you want to tune the long-press threshold.

Variable Default Purpose
TORCHD_BACKEND (auto) sysfs or apk. Overrides auto-detection.
TORCHD_TORCH_PATH (auto) path to the brightness sysfs file (sysfs backend only)
TORCHD_PKG me.nogrep.torchbutton package name of the helper APK
TORCHD_THRESHOLD_MS 400 long-press threshold in ms
TORCHD_BRIGHTNESS 255 value written to sysfs brightness (sysfs backend only)
TORCHD_VERBOSE (off) 1 to log every press/release event
TORCHD_LOG /data/adb/torchbutton.log daemon log path (truncated each boot)
TORCHD_ENABLE_FILE /data/user_de/0/me.nogrep.torchbutton/files/enabled path to the on/off flag (see Enabling and disabling)
TORCHD_TORCH_STATE_FILE /data/user_de/0/me.nogrep.torchbutton/files/torch_state path to the mirrored real torch state

All of these are exported to the daemon by service.sh, so setting them in config.sh takes effect (after a reboot — see the caveat below).

After editing, restart the daemon: adb shell su -c 'pkill -x torchd' (the watchdog inside service.sh will relaunch). Beware: the watchdog process itself was forked at boot and won't pick up new env vars from config.sh until the device reboots — pkill -x torchd only re-execs the daemon under the existing env, not a freshly-sourced one.

-x torchd (exact process name) — not -f torchd (full command line), because the latter also matches any shell process that has the word "torchd" in its argv, including yours.

When to lower TORCHD_THRESHOLD_MS

Our threshold must be shorter than the system long-press timer, otherwise the framework can open the power dialog (or the assistant) before we decide what to do, and you'll see a brief flash before we cancel. AOSP defaults to ~500 ms; Pixel is noticeably less. The shipped 400 ms is intentionally conservative.

  • if you see the power dialog briefly appear while turning off the flashlight, drop to 250–300;
  • if you want faster trigger and don't mind that 200 ms taps become long-presses, drop to 250.

When to set TORCHD_TORCH_PATH

Auto-detection covers all common sysfs locations (Qualcomm, MediaTek, classic Pixel). If yours is unusual:

adb shell 'su -c "ls /sys/class/leds | grep -iE \"torch|flash|spot\""'
# pick a candidate and test:
adb shell 'su -c "echo 255 > /sys/class/leds/<name>/brightness"'

Whichever path actually lit the LED — put that in config.sh.

If no /sys/class/leds/* entries match, the daemon falls back to the APK backend automatically, which uses CameraManager.setTorchMode() (this is the case on Pixel/Tensor — see Android 16 / Pixel specifics).

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