Database Users

Backlight on keyboard

Is the keyboard on the universal supposed to have a backlight? my mda pro doesnt and i cant seem to find any settings for it either? bit of a design flaw if it doesnt

It has an auto sensor which means that it won't lit unless you operate it in the dark.
Try covering the hole above the green tel key on the keyboard and then press any key on keyboard

You can set backlight to come on no matter how light it is. only comes on once key is touched but the light sensor doesnt affect it. no real advantage apart from looking good
trouble is cant remember where i saw how to do it, may have been on techguru's old or new site

It is found in the WiKi. Here are the instructions:
How long would you like the Universal keyboard to shine? 10 seconds is too short?, change the value of this key and it will shine so long as you wish! (or until the battery dies!)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Backlight\QKeyLedTimeout
Here is the link to the WiKI too: http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Universal_Registry
You can also disable the auto sensor by going to Settings>Backlight.

SPV M3100 keyboard backlight, does it have one or mine dead?

Hi,
I got my Orange SPV M3100 on Friday and already i've noticed what i think is a hardware fault. Not a big fault and i totally love the phone (Skype over wifi an encrypted connection works perfectly), but i'm worried as the phone is only a day old.
The first few times i opened the slide out keyboard I thought i noticed a nice blue keybourd backlight come on. I say thought as i can't find any reference to it in the manual. However whatever i now do, i can't get it to come back on. I've installed a few applications, but i doubt they would have caused it to stop working.
I don't suppose anyone else out there could tell me under what situations the backlight should come on (or if one exists), so that i can test it, and if it doesn't come on, i can phone up and get a replacement sent out. Its not a big problem and i can still use the phone, but you don't expect hardware to die after only a day.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.
Neil

there's a small hole in the top right of the keyboard. This is a light sensor. So, if light's on your keyboar led will be off, and if it's dark your keyboar led will be on.

you have to press a button too before it comes on iv found.

there is a setting for it as well somewhere to turn it on

Thanks for the advice guys, but the keyboard still doesn't light up if i open an application that asks for text to be entered and then slide out the keyboard in the dark and then press a key. Looks like my light sensor has died. I've just phoned Orange and they are sending me a replacement for between 6 and 10pm today (what fantastic service!).

Same issue over here
Hello I am experiencing the same problem over here.
It worked for the person who sold it to me and now it does not anymore.
Do you know if this is an HW or SW issue ?
Any other cases around?
TX

seems I have the same problem. i'm on orange and the light was working now it doesn't.
EDIT: no i dont have a problem. I went into a dark dark room and then typed something and it worked. if i cover over the "light sensor" with my finger and press a button, it doesnt work.

Indeed
Indeed I had a wrong interpretation of the function of the sensor:
The sensor works in the following way:
If it is dark AND there's a key pressed AND the setting in "Settings" is set to enable sensor THEN keyboard backlight is turned on if no light in evironment.
If the setting in "Settings" is set to enable sensor THEN keyboard backlight is turned on AS SOONS AS you press a key.
A little dumb from my point of view: if I slide the keyboard in the dark, is it to look at it in the obscurity? The simple sliding should turn it on by night.

luke.a.jones said:
you have to press a button too before it comes on iv found.
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I've noticed that the backlight on mine (Vario 2, it's a red backlight... urgh) doesn't come on all the time if it's dark or dusk-level, which is really annoying. Sometimes hitting the tab key brings it into life, but sometimes it just doesn't come on at all.
One of those 'temperamental', 'great idea in theory' designs methinks.

I also found out that if the turning screen backlight off on inactivity is disabled, then every time I slide out the keyboard, its backlight is turned on.

No Backlight on Softkets on Cingular 8525

This is really srtange. I thought that when improving a device engineers are supposed to take the good and add more features rather than remove essential features. I had a Cingular 8125 which was replaced by 8535. The Softkeys on hte 8125 are Backlit so itis easy to see in the dark, while on the 8525 the Softkeys no longer have any backlighting. The only keys that are Backlit on the 8525 are the Phone On(Green) and Off(Red) keys. Called Cingular Data Devices Support and they said that the keys are supposed to be backlit. But when I called HTC they said that the keys are painted. It is nice to know that Cingular is on top of this. Even their Technical people don't know!!! WOW amazing. While on the subject of Backlighting, the keyboard on the 8125 has better lighting as the numbers were lit in Red and the letter were lit in White. On 8525 everything is Blue, really hard to figure out. Maybe someone out there has an explanation for all this.

The keyboard definitely has a backlight on all the keys. What you may be experiencing is that the device comes defaulted with the keyboard only kicking on the backlight based on a 'light sensor'. I've disabled this sensor in the 'settings...buttons...backlight...(uncheck the box) on "enable keyboard backlight auto sensor". I found that even in dark settings the backlight sensor would not kick on the keyboard backlight properly so now the keyboard automatically lights up by just touching a key on the keyboard. Hope that helps!

The Softkeys don't have any Backlight!!!
My main issue is that why does the 8525 not have any backlight on the Softkeys (on the front of the phone, around the D-pad)???

Sorry...I too do not have backlights on those keys but hadn't really missed it since I mostly access those by feel.

dwcliff703 said:
the device comes defaulted with the keyboard only kicking on the backlight based on a 'light sensor'. I've disabled this sensor in the 'settings...buttons...backlight...(uncheck the box) on "enable keyboard backlight auto sensor".
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No fair...the 8525 doesn't give this option.

It's the 8525 that does give these options. The 8125 doesn't.

dwcliff703 said:
It's the 8525 that does give these options. The 8125 doesn't.
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Sorry, looked in the wrong spot. I found it! As for the 8125, it doesn't even have the light sensor, let alone the option to enable one.

dwcliff703 said:
The keyboard definitely has a backlight on all the keys. What you may be experiencing is that the device comes defaulted with the keyboard only kicking on the backlight based on a 'light sensor'. I've disabled this sensor in the 'settings...buttons...backlight...(uncheck the box) on "enable keyboard backlight auto sensor". I found that even in dark settings the backlight sensor would not kick on the keyboard backlight properly so now the keyboard automatically lights up by just touching a key on the keyboard. Hope that helps!
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Thanks for the tip... I was read to throw it out untill I read this

Thanks
Thanks dwcliff703 for your post, even though it was a while ago! I thought my keyboard button detector thingy was messed up or something and didn't know why it worked some of the time!

Keyboard light never, ever, works.

Got my Sprint Mogul a couple of days ago and having a tough time with the keyboard backlight not working.
I've done my searching and found that some people got their keyboard backlight to work by unchecking the option in Settings->Buttons->Backlight.
This didn't work for me.
Some people recommended just hitting a few keys and the backlight should work.
This didn't work for me either.
I'm looking at what just may be bad hardware and will have to replace the phone. That keyboard is damn hard to see in even the best low-light conditions. Forget about typing in the dark.
Does anyone know of methods that will force the keyboard to turn on so that I can test it?

unchecking the auto sensor option like you did should force it to come on whenever the keyboard is out, if it doesnt come on within a few seconds of sliding out id say get a replacement phone

I agree with defaultdotxbe...if unchecking the autosensor box isn't forcing it to be always on, I'd be worried.
I've left the autosensor activated, and my keyboard light works, but I must admit that it sometimes doesn't go on when I think it should. The sensor seems to be calibrated so that it has got to be pretty dark for the silly thing to decide to light up!
Having said that, someone on one of these forums came up with a pretty neat trick. If know I want to force the keyboard to be lit, I just slide it out about a quarter of an inch. The sensor is still hidden under the body of the phone at this point, and it thinks it's completely in the dark. The keyboard always lights up at that point. Once it's lit, then I slide the keyboard out the rest of the way. Brilliant, huh? You might wanna try that just to see if it makes any difference.
Good luck!

Thanks, peeps. I had the same problem with the keyboard light and was getting extremely frustrated. I tried the sensor trick (opening the keyboard 1/4) and, viola, it worked!
Walrus44

I also had the problem and after lots of searching I found out it was because I had the screen backlight turned all the way down. I moved it up to the first notch and now it works just fine even with the sensor.

Walrus44 said:
Thanks, peeps. I had the same problem with the keyboard light and was getting extremely frustrated. I tried the sensor trick (opening the keyboard 1/4) and, viola, it worked!
Walrus44
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This trick also fixes the orientation issues when turning on and it is in landscape rather than portrait.

Mogul Keyboard Backlight Delay

I have a new Sprint Mogul with the latest rom update. Every time that i slide to access the keyboard, there is a 1-2 second delay before the backlight illuminates. I unchecked the backlight sensor and no resolve. What happens is that the phone rotates the screen first and once that is completed, then the backlight turns on. This can be proven by pressing the screen rotate button on the htc home icon. If the phone is already in landscape mode, then the backlight has no delay. Is there a way that this can be modified to decrease the delay. Maybe have the light turn on first, then have the screen rotate to landscape?

now this would be nice...i feel like i switch to landscape and then wait to type anything. i looked around and couldnt find anything myself but hopefully someone can find something

Good question.....I'm interested too as that delay annoys the crap out of me, especially at night.

If you flip open your 6800 keyboard and take a look at the top of the keyboard between the Function LED and the right soft key you'll see a white circle. That's a light sensor. That's whats responsible for deciding if the keybpard backlight comes on or not. It takes one second to engage though. There may be some kind of registry edit but otherwise I don't know of anyway to adjust the delay.
-Adam

k3an said:
If you flip open your 6800 keyboard and take a look at the top of the keyboard between the Function LED and the right soft key you'll see a white circle. That's a light sensor. That's whats responsible for deciding if the keybpard backlight comes on or not. It takes one second to engage though. There may be some kind of registry edit but otherwise I don't know of anyway to adjust the delay.
-Adam
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Click to collapse
I have that sensor turned off, because that makes the delay even longer sometimes.

the sensor doesn't work, it's well documented in these forums.