[takeo]

OK, I hands down love carrying the PB everywhere - but today I got ****** annoyed by the software/screen light automation.

I was sitting in a restaurant in a shadow, but surrounded by sunlight. The screen was at full brightness - I could not change that (we had a lot of threads about this already and know that it's the software holding you off while in extreme sun-exposure). The problem is, my battery dropped 25% (!!) in 1 hour (!!!) because of the full brightness setting.

I then held my finger on the "red light" (which is the light-sensor actually) next to the camera and after about 5 seconds the backlight dropped to the level I wanted it to be and how I set it in the settings for screen backlight on battery. (I turned off automatic dimming to see the exact backlight manually set) - it was still perfectly fine to be read and not even half the brightness to full. That would have saved me a lot of battery I'm sure and I really want RIM to include an option to "ignore sunlight" - because it's not accurately measured in shadows surrounded by sunlight.

Just my two cents, needed to share it... got me crazy.

Update

Based on the answers I got here, there seems to be a missunderstanding. Therefore, more explicitly, this is my problem:

The Playbook thought I was sitting in bright sunlight and put the brightness all the way up, wasting my battery and I could not do anything about it!

The dim function is just there to *dim* the screen in case the surrounding environment is *dark* so the screen doesn't need to be very bright and battery can be saved.

There is no such setting to prevent the PB to *not* turn up the brightness.


And this is exactly my problem!

Thanks guys! Hope you don't feel like I'm making something up - this is indeed a battery drainer and useless if not possibly to be turned off.

[drethos]

then turn the auto dim off and adjust the screen to your most comfortable light setting.

[takeo]

then turn the auto dim off and adjust the screen to your most comfortable light setting.

That is indeed only for *dimming* - (lowering the screen brightness)

It does not affect the problem I described. Try it. I did... annoying

[Schlymer]

Just carry a dark sheet where ever you go that is too sunny and make a tent to block out the sun. People may think you are cool and want to sit in your tent.

[kbz1960]

All I have to say is LMAO.

[chasvs]

then turn the auto dim off and adjust the screen to your most comfortable light setting.

It's so much easier to get pissed off and blame RIM for your laziness isn't it? If he's sitting in a shadow HTF does he think the PB can tell there's bright light nearby? Does he think it's smarter than he is

[takeo]

It's so much easier to get pissed off and blame RIM for your laziness isn't it? If he's sitting in a shadow HTF does he think the PB can tell there's bright light nearby? Does he think it's smarter than he is

But exactly that's the problem I was having!

The Playbook thought I was sitting in bright sunlight and put the brightness all the way up, wasting my battery and I could not do anything about it!

The dim function is just there to *dim* the screen in case the surrounding environment is *dark* so the screen doesn't need to be very bright and battery can be saved.

There is no such setting to prevent the PB to *not* turn up the brightness.
And this is exactly my problem!

[Zwickliffe]

Ok just as I was going to post and call you an *****, I thought I would try it... He's right. Set your brightness to the minimum, turn off auto-dimming, then go to a bright place and cover up the sensor. Take your finger off of the sensor and BAM it's at full brightness. Cover it up and it is back to whatever brightness you set it at. Not a problem in my eyes but he is right.

[takeo]

Ok just as I was going to post and call you an *****, I thought I would try it... He's right. Set your brightness to the minimum, turn off auto-dimming, then go to a bright place and cover up the sensor. Take your finger off of the sensor and BAM it's at full brightness. Cover it up and it is back to whatever brightness you set it at. Not a problem in my eyes but he is right.

Thank you for supporting the case.

I think it's indeed a problem as it probably measures infrared or something like that to determine the brightness - and *I* want to be *able* to turn that function off.

It drained my battery crazily fast because of that

[sportline]

i am confused. what is the problem again?

[FF22]

The problem is TOO MUCH automation and not enough user control. The PB (like BB phones) detects ambient light and adjusts the screen's brightness. In some situations it detects light that does not affect viewing but pushes up the screen's light (brightness) thereby compensating for what the pb thinks is a very bright locale. But the extra brightness is unnecessary and uses more battery power. The user canNOT adjust the brightness manually and is stuck with too bright a screen and battery sucking light.

While some may suggest duct tape, it is pretty inelegant as a solution!!!!

[robsteve]

i am confused. what is the problem again?

If you are in very bright light, the Playbook screen goes to full brightness, probably brighter than even the brightest setting on the brightness slider or if auto dim is enabled or not. The OP wanted the option to have a less bright display in order to reduce power consumption/extend battery life.

What is confusing is people keep saying to turn off auto dim when this is brought up in threads, when in reality auto dimming does not affect this feature. I just assume these people do not have a Playbook or never actually tested it out.

I first noticed this problem around April 20th and after a bit of thought realized it was there on purpose and is probably best left that way. For example when the PlayBook is used by First Reponders or Military, they may not have time to fuss with screen brightness sliders when moving in and out of bright light, such as getting out of a vehicle or in and out of the shade. Since the PlayBook does not have an external brightness button, it would be time consuming for them to open the setting menu and then move the screen brightness. This may be something from the QNX operating system. From the QNX web site, I see the OS is used in portable medical devices.

QNX Blogs

For the original poster, if they do not make a change in the OS to disable this feature, your only solution is probably using something to cover the sensor when is such a situation.

Robert

[mark_rivers19]

you forgot to apply Sunscreen.. make sure it's UV 30 or higher.

anyway, how many times in a given week will you be sitting " in a shadow"?
if your answer is most of the time.. then bring a handy flash light.. until a patch for the software is available.

[Spinal]

heres a much more realistic example (and one that i just experienced) also to put it bluntly for those who still do not understand. if you turn autodimming to 'off' it still changes the brightness according to ambient lighting, so basically its a feature that doesnt work and is useless.

now onto the example;

i decided to watch a movie on my tv from my pb so i connected it via hdmi but i was too lazy to get my coupler so i could use another cable to sit on the couch and i ended up sitting on the floor. while on the floor i felt like leaning against the wall which has a window above it once my pb detected a bright light source (relative to inside my house, because its cloudy here) it automatically increased the brightness even thought i had that feature disabled, or so i thought. RIM better fix this; its a feature that either works or doesnt, not somewhere in between.

sent from my playbook

[Intosh]

Strange.

On mine, I have Automatic Backlight Dimming to off and the screen brightness NEVER changes -- no auto increase, no auto decrease of brightness, ever (except when Backlight time-out expires, of course).

Oh and by the way, I have the brightness set to lowest setting and it's still very usable in practically all environments (probably not in direct sunlight though), even in the office where it's very well lit.

Update: OK, so I just tested it -- I managed to trigger the auto brightness increase. I aimed my cell phone's flash right at the sensor to trigger it, otherwise nothing. LOL I guess my usage pattern just doesn't run into this extreme case.

[cntrydncr223]

subscribed

[Scrapegoat]

The OP is correct to be annoyed with this.

This totally explains why the worst ever battery performance of my PB was just 3 hours and it was whist I was using my PB to edit docs and surf the net whilst sitting under an umbrella outside in bright daylight thinking that my screen brightness settings were correct.

Anyway, it is correct to suggest that if auto dimming is set to on, then it must automatically override the manual setting as required, but if it is set to off, then the manual setting must take priority regardless of the light situation.

BTW, suggestions that it is difficult to access the settings under an emergency situation is bollox, just touch the battery icon and slide the screen brightness there...

I also noticed whilst testing, that holding finger over the sensor dims the screen more than the minimum manual setting and likewise, in full sun, brightens the screen a touch more than the maximum manual setting.