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Turn off backlight coming on when pressing any button

Jacquers
11 months ago

I assume it's normal for the backlight to come on when pressing any of the buttons on the watch, even during daytime hours?

I'd like to turn off the backlight for button presses, especially in the day. I've turned off the wrist gesture activating it and that works. However, I can't find a setting to deactivate the backlight for button presses and the lowest the backlight settings can go is 10%.

I can live with the backlight coming on during nighttime when I press any button (with sleep / dnd being the exception). It's actually not even necessary indoors with lights on, but without an ambient light sensor the watch doesn't know, so it makes sense for this use case. But it seems like a waste of battery for daytime usage. I think the only button that should activate it during the day should be the light button.

Currently on FW 18.26

  • 0 11 months ago

    If long-press UP and get into the Systems -> Display settings, I see sections for "General Use", "During Activities", and "Sleep". In each section, an option for "Keys" which has options "Off", "On", and "After Sunset".

    Setting mine to "After Sunset" lets me press buttons (other than LIGHT) and not have the screen light up during the day. However, I've reverted mine to "On" for general use, because without an ambient light sensor, this got annoying when in dim indoor settings. On the other hand, since my activities are essentially always outside, I keep "After Sunset" for activities and it works well enough.

    With the low brightness and short enough timeout, I don't think it actually uses much power unless you are clicking buttons constantly. Things like satellite tracking, 24/7 pulse-ox, seconds display, inefficient CIQ watchfaces, and enabled communications will burn much more power than the dim backlight in normal use.

  • 0 11 months ago in reply to 6125703

    Thanks. Setting keys to off for general use works, but 'after sunset' doesn't. It's already a few minutes past sunrise (and past twilight) and the backlight still comes on. I've toggled the setting a few times and it doesn't work as expected. I'll check again later, but I would expect it to stop activating the backlight at any time equal to or past sunrise. Seems like a bug / glitch to me.

    If I set keys to off for sleep, will the light button still activate the backlight? I would hope / expect it to.

    Update: An hour later and it works. I'll test again tomorrow to see if it works closer to sunrise.

  • 0 11 months ago in reply to Jacquers

    If you use a Garmin watchface that can show sun event times, you could see if their calculation of sunrise/sunset for your location differ from your expectation.

    But also, I imagine the developers would see the conservative option as extending the button light period a bit before sunset and after sunrise, rather than the opposite.

  • 0 11 months ago in reply to 6125703

    I checked it against the sunrise / sunset info glance. I have to assume they may have done what you described, although that logic makes more sense for the twilight period? If it is the case, it would be nice to know how long that period after sunrise is. 30 minutes? 1 hour? I'll have to check again tomorrow. Today I checked at +- 7:03 and it was already decently light outside with no need for a backlight, at least outdoors.

    This is also interesting: (+) Sunset/sunrise difference main screen and menu screen - Forerunner 255 Series - Running/Multisport - Garmin Forums

  • 0 11 months ago in reply to 6125703

    It seems to be about an hour after sunrise until the backlight doesn't come on anymore. In a way it makes some sense, but it's not intuitive or I think well documented.

  • 0 11 months ago

    I have the light off (F255). Previously, when I pressed the Activity button, the light came on (for a while, then went off). It hasn't worked that way for about 3 months now.