Glo kobo freezes in sunlight

[salinda]

hi, i have a problem reading outdoors, i love to read in the sun, but after a while my kobo glo freezes, and i must do a soft reset, i upgraded the latest firmware because kobo said it had freezingproblems with the sleepcover, and it did indeed, but now it freezes during reading.

[murg]

The sun may be confusing the Infrared sensors on the Glo.

Not sure what a solution would be though...

[meeera]

Originally Posted by murg

The sun may be confusing the Infrared sensors on the Glo.

Not sure what a solution would be though...

A broad-brimmed hat? Worth it to reduce the risk of cataracts and facial skin cancer, too. Win-win!

[davidfor]

Maybe this https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?t=215848?

[Smartie]

I have both touch and glo. For some reason,I feel touch quality is better than glo

[samhy]

It happened to me several times last year when I was riding a bus in summer. The characters on my Mini started to fade away and turning pages wasn't working fine.
So far nothing this year, but the days aren't sunny/warm enough yet.

I have no idea why it happens nor how to prevent it.

[PurpleStar]

I have noticed as well that the Glo doesn't respond well to sunlight. I don't know why that is, unfortunately.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by samhy

So far nothing this year, but the days aren't sunny/warm enough yet.

Well it did it again this morning when I was in the tramway However I can't remember a time it happened to me when I was outside. It always seems to be related to reading behind a window

[murg]

Maybe you should also make sure you keep any wooden stakes away from it...

[TechniSol]

Could be a coating on a window refracting light, or selectively passing IR in just the right frequency range to overload the IR and swamp the detectors. Could just be heating from IR/sunlight and messing with a marginal component or three. Or, if you prefer government sponsored explanations, it was Venus refracting off swamp gas... Keep it cool, try to keep it out of full on bright sunshine and I'll bet the problem won't be one at all. Maybe the diffraction layer for the front lighting(if the reader in question has one) is acting like a lens and focusing heat on the e-ink display.

It'd be interesting to stick a Touch and a Glo in the same situ and see which gives up the ghost first.

[samhy]

Last year there were those two threads regarding Kobo devices and sun.
Sunday I was reading outside without any issue but I guess it wasn't as warm as reading in public transportation (more windows would be welcome ).

ETA: Oh, and I keep a silver bullet with me all the time. Just in case...

[Darth_Bane]

Originally Posted by salinda

hi, i have a problem reading outdoors, i love to read in the sun, but after a while my kobo glo freezes, and i must do a soft reset, i upgraded the latest firmware because kobo said it had freezingproblems with the sleepcover, and it did indeed, but now it freezes during reading.

Same happens with the Touch, especially if it's black. It's not an IR thing, I'm pretty sure it's just heat build-up.

I was in Las Vegas with my Touch a couple of weeks ago and, being an Engineer, spent a couple of hours a day at the 2nd nicest pool in Vegas experimenting. (and staying hydrated ;-) Not a cloud in the sky, no humidity, and really hot. After about 30 minutes of reading in full sun, the Kobo would freeze so bad it needed a pin reset, and after that, would freeze every few minutes.

Put the reader in the shade for 10-15 minutes and the freeze went away for about 15 minutes, then came back as the Kobo heated up again. Cooling the Kobo in the shade fixed the freeze 100% of the time until the unit heated up again.

Reading on my stomach with my head shading the Kobo never caused any freeze.

No freeze since coming home to the relatively frigid Great White North.

Conclusion: a black Touch in full sunlight exceeds the limits of some of the Kobo Touch/Glo components. Strangely, my wife's black Kobo Mini never missed a beat.