If you ever get tired of having to fiddle with options inside your Android device, Notification Toggle might be worth it’s weight in gold. Notification Toggle puts toggles (WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, etc.) inside your Android notification bar so you can easily switch settings on and off.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Notification Toggle is an app for Android that allows you to put common toggles for devices options and settings in the notification center for Android.

Pros

• Can add over two dozen different toggles to notification menu
• Easy to use and configure
• Custom icon support

Cons

• Only really valuable to users that don’t already have something similar built into their ROMs
• GPS may not be directly toggleable for some people (due to Android security limitations)

Discussion

The Power Control Android widget is extremely useful, providing users with quick-access to often-used toggles and switches like WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. However, the widget takes up 4×1 room on your homescreen and you always have to go back to the homescreen to use it — you can’t use it while in other parts of your phone such as on a different screen, in settings, in an app, etc. Putting the toggles and switches in the pull-down menu (e.g. what Samsung does for their Galaxy S devices) would allow users the joy of Power Control with the added bonus of not wasting homescreen space and being able to access the toggles and switches from anywhere the notification bar is available (i.e. everywhere). And this is exactly what Notification Toggle allows users to do.

With Notification Toggle users can put Power Control-like toggles and switches in the pull-down menu of Android devices. Notification Toggle allows users to put any of the following toggles/switches in the pull-down menu:

• WiFi
• Bluetooth
• Sound / Vibration, Sound / Silent, Sound menu
• Brightness mode / menu / 5 predefined stages
• Screen timeout dialog
• Wake lock
• Rotation
• Flight mode
• Mobile data
• NFC
• Flashlight
• Sync
• WiFi & USB tethering
• Music: previous / next / pause
• WiFi settings / advanced settings
• Bluetooth settings, including enabling Bluetooth visibility
• GPS
• Mobile data settings
• Data usage
• Battery
• Camera
• Next wallpaper (requires WallpaperChanger)
• Lockscreen (requires DelayedLock)
• Shutdown & reboot (requires root)
• Shortcuts for your own apps

Once the toggles and switches are in the pull-down menu, all you have to do is open the menu and toggle whatever you want to toggle with one tap. It is extremely useful.

Take note because of the way Google has secured Android, Notification Toggle may not work on some devices. However, it works perfectly on my Nexus S and based on the comments on Notification Toggle’s Play Store page, Notification Toggle seems to work with most all devices.

That said, Notification Toggle is only useful for people who don’t have custom ROMs. Many custom ROMs already have this functionality built-in. Heck, many stock ROMs for different manufacturers already have this functionality built-in. This app is neat and all, but this isn’t really anything too exciting for many users. For example, I use a custom ROM on both of my devices that already has this functionality, so this isn’t anything that is amazing for me. However, if you don’t use custom ROMs and your device doesn’t have this built-in, then this can be very useful for you.

Conclusion and download link

If you’re interested in having access to common toggles like WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc. right inside your notification menu, then Notification Toggle is perfect for you. It has a very simple setup and it might not look like much, but it can do a lot. In fact, once you get used to it you likely can’t live without it.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 2.7.1

Requires: 2.1 and up

Download size: 804 KB

Notification Toggle on Play Store