I think some sort of slider that lets you adjust the auto value would be pretty simple to implement.

A slider woud be great... as long as it controlled minimum brightness independently of maximum. The maximum brightness cannot afford to be any dimmer (as it's already not bright enough for many of the outdoor users who are lucky enough to live in sunnier climes).

Hi All,
 

Is the problem that the Dimmest setting (1) is too bright for you, or is the problem that the auto-dimming doesn't go down the dimmest setting?

The setting (1) really is as dim as it gets.  I worked extra hard to make it that dim :-)  The display wasn't designed for going that dim so I had to build in extra circuitry to allow it.

It's pretty certain that currently the auto dimming does not get as low as the manual setting 1.

If brightness is set to automatic, display brightness currently does not go to the lowest possible (i.e. 1) level in a complete dark room as some people complained it was too dim to be readable at all.

I guess we need a preference in SC allowing people to adjust what the lowest level should be when using automatic.

I asked MC to report back what the second line of the ambient light sensor factory test shows in a completely dark room and here is the answer:

b@ 114/10+2=13 +0=13

The Boom I used to calibrate shows this in a complete dark room:

b@ 0/10+2=2 +0=2

The first number is what the light sensor is reporting and the number after the first equal sign is what is used as input for the display brightness.

The ambient light readings appear to be affected by the relection of the Boom display off my face (at 0.6m away) and nearby objects. Reflected light from the display (in tests, reflected from the inside of a duvet of dark cotton, and my face) can give an ambient light reading as high as 512, which gave a dispay input brightnes as 41!

Maybe the "compete darkeness" floor ought to be a lot higher?

Simon asked me to check my ambient light sensor factory test reading in a darkened room.

Seeing as it's daylight here, I took Boom with me into the bathroom :-) (no window here) and closed the door.  It was very dark, I couldn't see the paper I was writing on, but here's the reading I wrote:

b@ 0/10+2=2 +0=2

Same as Felix's and is probably indicating the lowest value it can record.

However the bedroom at night is brighter than this - the blind doesn't seal out all light and there's a streetlight right outside the window.  It's still quite dark in there but not as dark.

I'll take a reading under those conditions but it'll take a few days as I'm going on a business trip.

Thank you for the feedback, guys, I appreciate it.

(In reply to comment #1)
> I think some sort of slider that lets you adjust the auto value would be pretty
> simple to implement.

I would like three sliders for the auto value:

One to set the maximum brightness
One to set the minimum brightness
One to set the treshold/sensitivity of the sensor

I noticed that my Boom (placed in the kitchen) goes "too dim too soon" - I like the lowest brightness when it's completely dark, but when the lights are on in the hallway next to the kitchen or when it's dusk (enough light to get a drink in the fridge but not enough to cook) it's too dim. In other words, I prefer a low darkness-sensitivity. I imagine that for bedroom use, a higher darkness-sensitivity would be preferable.

Andy notes there is a new firmware version with some changes in this area.

I am on SC 7.3 trunk.  I have firmware version 32 on my Boom, with all brightness settings set to "Automatic".  This still doesn't work.

It's a bit strange, as it was working fine a little while before official release, so I don't think it's a hardware issue (other than firmware changes).

Still, I'll put a note that this is possibly related to bug 9104, just as a reminder as we keep looking at it.

I am on firmware 33 (SC7.3) as I saw that this had some improvements for auto brightness.

However, I am still experiencing the same problem - display is permanently on max brightness.

Hello Philip

Thank you for the feedback.

I am unable to match you with a forum name in the linked thread, so apologies if I already asked you to that.

Could you do me a favor and go into setup mode by pressing and holding 'left', then go into 'Current settings' - 'Factory Test' - 'Ambient light (lux)' and with the room completely dark, report here what you see on the bottom line?

Should be something like: "b @ 0/10+2=2 +0=2"

If the first character is not a 'b' but a '1' that indicates a too old preproduction (beta test) unit which used a different lens (front panel with different characteristics in respect of how much light it lets through) and different light sensor that is not supported in firmware anymore. Memory / ROM space in firmware is very limited so we cannot justify additional code and a second lookup table. Sorry about that.

Thanks
Felix

Interesting; tonight when I enabled auto brightness again it seemed to be constantly really low brightness (rather than fixed at really high brightness like I've reported in the past).

I checked in factory settings again.

With the lights out, it reported: b@0/10+2=2+0=2
With the lights on, it reported: b@1585/10+2=50+0=50

I left the factory setting screen up and the lights on for a bit whilst doing other stuff, and when I glanced back, the reading had changed back to b@0/10+2=2+0=2.  I pressed power off, and then power-on, and went back to the factory setting screen and it was then reading ~ b@1468, so perhaps my sensor has become faulty, or something else is causing it to mis-read after a period of time.

I did some tests because the display on auto is too bright for my taste. With lights out it shows "b @ 0/10+2=2 +0=2". If i understand it correctly this is the best, i.e lowest reading you can get.
The brightness level is about 1,7 (between 1 and 2, nearer at 2) but i'd like it to be at 1.0 (the darkest level available). Thanks!
system: SC7.3 and firmware 33.

Firmware 33, SC 7.2.1.
The auto brightness appears work perfectly for me now. Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback.

Philip: Hmm, I am not sure what to make out of your observation. Have you tried a factory reset? What happens if you place your Boom in a different location?

Markus: We are planning to implement a manual setting to allow adjustment of the lowest brightness level.

Simon: Good to hear it works for you. :)

Okay, this is really weird!

I reprogrammed the xilinx.  Still didn't seem to be making any difference when I turned lights on/off.

So I got a torch and placed it over the sensor.  I turned it on, and a second or so later, the screen brightness got a little brighter.  I turned the torch off, and it dimmed a bit.

I tried this a few times, and it responded.

So I then turned the lights on/off, and the brightness then changed!  It didn't seem to get all that bright with lights on, and didn't quite go as dim as I would like with lights out, but it was encouraging.

A few minutes later, I glanced back at the display, and the brightness was back to being dim with the lights on and remained at the same brightness level when I turned the lights off.

I got the torch out again, and it responded to the bright light.  I then turned the lights on/off a few times and it continued to respond to changes.  A few minutes later with the lights left on, the display dimmed, and stopped responding.

All of this in Power-off mode displaying the standard clock screensaver.

Hi Philip, could you also try a factory reset, press and hold add (+) on the front panel while plugging in power. Keep holding add (+) until you see 'Factory Reset' on the display. Then w/o connecting to your SC go directly into the factory test for the ambient light sensor and try the light on/off test again. This takes out SC as parameter from the equation. Thanks, Felix.

The auto-brightness *might* have a bug, in 7.3 (Windows 23529) at least. I woke up in the "almost" pitch black noticing that my Boom display appeared brighter than usual (all states are set to auto). I selected the correct state in settings, changed brightness to a manual selection and then back to auto. The screen returned to the brightness I'd got used to (i.e. the correct amount of dimness).

Simon: The same thing has happened to me on about 3 occasions, but not since updating to a 7.2.1 version with firmware 33. Could just be coincidence that it hasn't happened.

>Hi Philip, could you also try a factory reset, press and hold add (+) on the
>front panel while plugging in power. Keep holding add (+) until you see
>'Factory Reset' on the display. Then w/o connecting to your SC go directly into
>the factory test for the ambient light sensor and try the light on/off test
>again. This takes out SC as parameter from the equation. Thanks, Felix.
>
Just got round to doing this test.

With the sensor covered, the value is reported as 0, and the display is dim.

In a fairly dark room with sensor uncovered, the value goes up to ~700 and the display is medium bright.

If I shine a torch at the sensor, the number goes much higher, but the display remains at the same brightness (so there appears to be only two display brightness levels in factory test mode).

I reconnected to my local SC, and the auto brightness seems to go quite dim now when the sensor is covered, and goes quite bright when there is any light (appears there are two brightness levels).

Better than it was.

FYI: In factory test mode and when connected to SC/SN there are as many brightness levels when set to automatic as there are manual brightness levels.

However is it very hard to get / see them when set to automatic and not using a dimmable steady light source.

Another reason why it is hard to get to brightness levels between 'dark' and 'bright' is that the calculated value needs to be stable for about 4 seconds before the brightness level changes which is fairly easy to achieve for min and max, but not so easy in between.

Okay so there is still interest in having it dimmer still.  We'll continue to investigate.  It seems like if we go much dimmer, it will be hard to read the display due to the background glow of the display.

There was a Boom firmware back when Boom was in beta, just after the introduction of auto-dimming, that had a VERY dim minimum brightness.

Some time later, a change was made and the minimum brightness seemed to have been raised.

So it's been done before but was changed for some reason...

Changing target to next release

FYI: Current SBB fw and SC has the ability to adjust the minimal brightness level, down to what it was during early beta.

Can we get a roll call of people using the latest 7.3.2 Boom firmware?  Is it dim enough currently or should be keep tinkering?  Thanks for your feedback!

I'm using the 7.3.2 nightly (currently 24592) and have played a little with the new Minimal Brightness and Brightness Sensitivity settings.

I find that I'd really like to set my Booms Minimum Brighness at about 1.4, but this is not possible. I think the 0-5 scale is not fine enough. I'd prefer it if the slider worked as one would expect a slider to (i.e. not stepped).

I'm not sure I understand exactly what Brightness Sensitivity does (and nor does the guy who has just written about it in the Boom forum), but with settings from 0-20 it should be easier to achieve the correct setting than it is with the 0-5 Minimum Brighness scale.

I think the brightness is perfect now, as far as the above poster wondering about sensitivity.  IIRC that slider will adjust how quickly the display reacts to changes in the ambient light.

(In reply to comment #30)
> Can we get a roll call of people using the latest 7.3.2 Boom firmware?  Is it
> dim enough currently or should be keep tinkering?  Thanks for your feedback!
> 

My bedroom is really dark (dark as in "no light") and the Boom is the brightest part of it - especially if your eyes had some time to adopt to the darkness.

Even with brightness level set to 1 (fw43, automatic or manual mode works equally well) i wouldn't be sad if the display would be a bit darker...

I'll continue to review this bug for new comments, but at the moment I don't judge that we can spare developer time from other projects to tinker with this.