Get rid of Kindle Paperwhite's backlight

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

I have been using it for about a month.
The inability to switch off backlight annoys me more than other things.

Weird. If the light level is set below about "3", I'm completely unable to see the slightest different between the light being on or off in daylight. (ie when I put the Kindle to sleep, the background colour of the screen doesn't appear to me to change in the slightest.)

Guess it goes to show that we're all sensitive to different things. You must have VERY sensitive eyes to be able to actually see a light setting of "1" in daylight.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by kacir

I have been using it for about a month.
The inability to switch off backlight annoys me more than other things.

Then perhaps you have notice that the Kindle does not have a back light - only a front light.

Under what ambient lighting conditions do you find the display lighting annoying?
If you could tell us that, perhaps we could move this thread along towards a conclusion.

[ixtab]

Well, the conclusion has already been found. See posts 1 and 6.

[fforc9e]

Guys what about power consumption? Did anybody have seen the difference in battery life when the frontligh (:P) is off using second cron script?

Maybe you can't see the difference between front light set to 1 and without it, but battery may see. :P

[knc1]

Originally Posted by fforc9e

Guys what about power consumption? Did anybody have seen the difference in battery life when the frontligh (:P) is off using second cron script?

Maybe you can't see the difference between front light set to 1 and without it, but battery may see. :P

Battery age and charge/discharge cycle history will make a bigger difference.
Should require laboratory tools to tell the difference.

(#3,000)

[ProDigit]

Problem with me is not whether or not I see the lights or not,
Problem is, that it's using needlessly battery this way.

The ability to turn it off, is vital to extended battery life.
If currently the battery lasts 8 weeks, with leds off, it might top 12 weeks.
It's not much, but it's something!
Generally, I'm against wasting energy, when it takes so little to program the device to maximize it's battery life by turning it off!

Now, granted, if they had turned off the backlight completely, but had equipped the device with an unused audio output for headphones, or a (micro) SD cardreader, that was not used, just that part would consume more battery than the leds set at intensity 1.

Nowadays it's all about numbers, and having a device work 10 weeks is better than 'only 8' weeks!
To me, it seems an inefficient way of running the device!

With the 'led off' hack, is it easy to turn it on again, or do you need to do a system reboot?

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by fforc9e

Guys what about power consumption? Did anybody have seen the difference in battery life when the frontligh (:P) is off using second cron script?

Maybe you can't see the difference between front light set to 1 and without it, but battery may see. :P

Umm, no, not a scientific method in any way. But will the few milliseconds that the device wakes up during the cronjob have any measurable effect on battery life? I doubt it.

[centhena]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

I was expecting to be able to increase/decrease the light of the paperwhite.

You can increase and decrease the light on the stock paperwhite. There are 24 light settings to play with. It gets bright enough to light a dark hallway. You just can't turn it off...

Originally Posted by HarryT

A serious question - have you used a PW?

I honestly defy you to be able to tell whether or not the light is set to "1" or is off in daylight, unless you hold the PW on edge and peer down the bezel to look at the LEDs.

I've had my PaperWhite for a week. I notice the difference. The white "paper" of the screen is noticably brighter with the light on than off. In daylight I prefer it the dimmer more muted off white of off like it is when the sleep screens are engaged.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

The ability to turn it off, is vital to extended battery life.
If currently the battery lasts 8 weeks, with leds off, it might top 12 weeks.

Not likely.
the leds at 1 most likely draw less than the self-discharge rate of the battery.

Try the math - its a 1500MaH battery -
The leds at "1" will not pull more that 1ma -
Now divide 1500 by the hours in 8 weeks -
minus 1 (or 2 if parniod) -
Now multiple the result back into weeks -

I.E: Not worth the trouble of doing the math. Try it yourself.

[geekmaster]

For comparison, some batteries are known to have a longer life when powering a low-power device (such as a watch) than when sitting unused new in the box. The technical explanation for this had something to due with higher internal resistance when electrically polarized by a tiny current flow (as I recall).

In the case of lithium batteries, it does not pay to buy a spare battery for a new device. By the time you need it, the spare will likely be dead too. From personal experience, it does not work to keep both batteries charged and keep swapping them, because that tends to confuse the portable device charging algorithm so that the power meter becomes inaccurate and the batteries may not get a full charge.

[twobob]

Perhaps some technical tools could fix it?

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by twobob

Perhaps some technical tools could fix it?

Dude, it is a digital device. Wouldn't a digital hammer be more appropriate?

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Dude, it is a digital device. Wouldn't a digital hammer be more appropriate?

I can see why your hammer hit more fingers than nails. You don't want to return it for warranty replacement of the camera lens, right? What about finger smears on the lens?

[efalk]

I'm confused; why not just the brightness all the way down?

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by efalk

I'm confused; why not just the brightness all the way down?

All the way down at 0 (there is 25 light levels on the PW, not the incorrect stated 24 - it got 24 bars labeled 1 through 24 plus no bar showing and nothing - lets just call that 0) the light is still visible. So even 0 is not turned off, thus draining valueable battery. The belief is (can't really be proven right or wrong), that it is much better for battery life to have it off instead of 0. So even at level 0 it supposedly wastes too much - which is utterly silly in my opinion. So it is a good question.