Galaxy S7 Edge —> Flashlight?

Got a decommissioned Galaxy S7 Edge, which BARELY worked, all glass was completely shattered. One thing Samsung got right is the flash LED is absolutely sublime. While iPhone default flash is cold white (almost greenish in comparison) and compensates by extra two LED of ******* amber tint — Samsung simply used one powerful LED which seems to either have very high CRI or a perfect shade of neutral-warm tint.


Ive compared it to an indandescent minimag and it's not that yellow at all, and the brightness is about 2/4 that of iPhone 8's setting, though I'm sure I could push it a bit more.


This is a very very impressive little light and I would love to create a pen sized flashlight that would run on either 1 or 2 AA.


if anyone can shed some light on what model/make LED this is, max voltage and amperage, I would greatly appreciate it, also please give me ideas on how to remove it from the board. I practiced on another galaxy S2 and when I used a heat shrinking heatgun it started melting white LED plastic, pushing it while heating I only managed to gouge the glass lens out, the only other thing I can think of is slowly cutting the board around it.

here is the picture of what I have, sorry if bad format I'm off my phone at the moment.

If you are curious on CRI

Holy cow, thank you so much! 87/100 that is impressive, no wonder I've been obsessing over the tint, I was surprised with how well I see colors with it at night.

Now I need to get some schematics to get the voltage and amperage I wouldn't want to burn this gem, ideally I want to create a thin flashlight using galaxy 7 edge battery, maybe even repurpose the wireless charger, and maybe even get a second and third such LED.


Do you have readings for S8, S9? I wonder who's making these, this is such day and night difference Vs crappy 5mm LEDs, like why doesn't notecore or whatever make pocket keychain lights with such gem?

I do not have an S9 to test but the S8 uses the same LED.

I am not sure if you are attached to this particular LED but theres a ton of readily available high CRI LEDs out there that are better and flashlight friendly at 3V.

Nichia 219A
Nichia 219B
Nichia 219C
Nichia E21A
Nichia Optisolis
Luminus Xnova Cube
Luminus SST-20
Luminus SBT-70
Osram Oslon Square
Lumileds Luxeon MZ
Samsung LH351B
Samsung LH351C
Samsung LH351D

It is really bright.... I do a lot of selling on craigslist and I used to use my DSLR for all the pics of items, but starting with my S7 Edge ive been using that, the light is bright enough to get surprisingly good photos especially macro kinds of stuff.

It's not very bright as flashlight, about half as bright as 2 out of 4 LED's of iPhone on 50% brightness, but light quality beats iPhone 8 flash hands down. Second thing, when you take a picture, is the flash brighter than regular flashlight mode? On iPhone it's usually very bright about twice as bright as max flash.

iPhone also uses the ******* ambler flash too but it's unicorn rare, certainly never in flashlight mode. There is a way to trick iPhone through video mode to enable the Amber flash, focus on something red, then tap and enable flash,I'm not sure how good this LED mixing is and whether together it produces a high CRI, but I'm curious.

I do not have an iPhone 8 but I do have an XS Max. Also, if you want more phones tested you should send them to me. This is the last of what I have.

95?? 97??? 3000K?!! That was unexpected. I would say I could get about 4000K but I couldn't get 3000K though I'm sure it's posisble, hmmmmm... thank you for those readings very informative.

Got max lumens by any chance? Kinda curious. For S7 during flashlight mode and Flash during picture mode. Same for iPhone for warm+cold video mode, flashlight mode, and picture mode.

When turning on the flash in video nice I had it pointed in the general direction of an incandescent bulb. May also be due to 8 vs XS model differences

Best way to remove that LED is probably a hot-air reflow station.

eh ended up destroying it unfortunately, it was insanely fragile... basically it has an aluminum reflector machined around it, and as i was trying to heat it up from the bottom and push the LED it broke off, but its okay, theres a list of much more higher CRI that are 3V friendly, problem is now I dont know where to buy them, have no housings, no idea how to replace or mod. There are many lights sold with garbage LED's in them, I guess you just swap it out and hope it works, ill have to invesitgate when time allows

staticx57 said:

When turning on the flash in video nice I had it pointed in the general direction of an incandescent bulb. May also be due to 8 vs XS model differences

Click to expand...

can you list more LED's that are high CRI but only around or exactly 4000K, maybe there's a catalog, or whatever you can recall, I don't know where to begin searching, so far I've just been searching LED's you gave me on Amazon and it's giving me options, but so far most lights are expensive or not the K I want

Krane said:

Do you have readings for S8, S9? I wonder who's making these, this is such day and night difference Vs crappy 5mm LEDs, like why doesn't notecore or whatever make pocket keychain lights with such gem?

Click to expand...

There's probably a bit of a tint lottery involved, but my observation of the LED on the S8 that my employer issued me is that it is probably around 4000K, but a bit green hued when compared to some of my better lights (both 219C and 219B), and I think has a lower R9.

Nitecore makes the MT06D and the Tip. They have been advertised as having the Nichia 219B, but I suspect they both now ship with the 219C. The Lumintop Tool, Worm, and IYP365 are also popular pocket lights available with either standard Cree emitters, or high CRI Nichia's.

Krane said:

95?? 97??? 3000K?!! That was unexpected.

Click to expand...

That measurement is from an $1100 phone. For that price it better have the best that Apple can find of every component in it.

For your penlight project, staticx57 gave you a pretty thorough list of currently popular emitters. Among those I'm familiar with, here's a couple places you can shop for them:

- Nichia 219B: Very well liked, but very hard to find - discontinued.
- Nichia 219C: Mountain Electronics
- Luminus SST-20: Kaidomain
- Samsung LH351D: Arrow Electronics
- Nichia E21A: Virence.com
- Nichia Op: Virence.com

Arrow is a huge electronics component supplier. Their catalog is hard to search because it is so big, but I know some tricks. Digikey and Mouser have similar offerings, but the advantage for small-volume users is Arrow has cheap or free shipping.

Mountain, Kaidomain, and Virence all participate directly within the flashlight enthusiast community.

I think you have to message him directly as a special request, but Virence has indicated he has a kit on offer of a either an E21A or Optisolis emitter mounted on a compatible, small diameter circuit board, plus an optic he has tested to work well with each emitter. He offers them in a range of color temperatures. He has tested the kit to work in the Jetbeam Jet-u and the Fenix E05, and it probably works in other small lights, too.

Staticx57 - are you creating an index anywhere of the various lights you measure? I think that would be a great resource for the community. Thanks as always for sharing.

static how do you measure stuff, do you have a thread on your gear?

You need a spectrophotometer, I have an Xrite i1 pro.