Automatic keyboard backlight brightness

Ask Fedora
1

Hello,
I was wondering if there was some way to have the keyboard backlight brightness be controlled in the same way as the screen brightness is in fedora 43 worksation. Though instead of getting brighter when ambient light is high, it would dim and when ambient light is low, it would brighten up.
Thanks!

2

Phones have ambient light sensors.
I have not seen one on a laptop.
So while technically possible to use the camera, that would mean the camera is always on.
So I don’t think this would be easy.

Edit: I have not seen the screen brightness function in Gnome 43. It it tied to time of day?

3

actually I didn’t know this existed either until I installed Fedora on my Zenbook 14 which includes an IR sensor for windows Hello! It worked fine on Fedora 42, although a manual bias would be good (I believe this is being worked on). So in short, the IR sensor must be picking up luminance data because the auto brightness works even with the camera privacy shutter closed.

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4

Ah, well in that case it should be relatively simple for a Gnome developer to add the keyboard backlight, as long as the LED controller allows for variable power levels.
I would raise it with Gnome directly.
Its a good idea.

5

Yes, I know this is about the Fedora Workstation and I don’t know Gnome at all, but KDE has a way to change the light color from daylight to nightlight by checking the time of day and the position on earth where the laptop is.
Can’t something like this be done for the backlight in keyboards, Gnome or KDE?
What is of course important is the hardware the laptop has onboard to control the backlight, has it a dim function or is it just, like in my Lenovo Legion, a 3 -position switch for off, half intensity and full intensity?

6

Thanks, I will try to raise this with Gnome directly. As for the increments, I have 4 brightness levels (0-3), but it should work the same way the screen brightness does.

7

You might be interested in this GNOME extension:

On devices with a light level sensor, it varies both the screen brightness and (if the device supports it) the keyboard backlight brightness.

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8

Thanks! this seems to fit my needs :slight_smile:

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