Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Switch off Pulsating Sleep Light

markcres

markcres

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 30, 2006
323
316
UK
Hi Folks,

I have a new iMac Intel Core Duo.... and it is just a few feet from my bed!!

I prefer to put the Mac to sleep rather than switch it off... but the pulsating "sleep light" is annoying.

Is there a way of disabling the pulsating light instead of having to switch it off altogether???

Many thanks
Mark
 
as you're putting the mac to sleep hold a torch or your desk lamps bulb towards the gray apple apple logo on the macs chin.

The apple contains an ambient light sensor, the less light in the room, the brighter the sleep light will become...

..therefore the more light you give it, the dimmer it will be, the light will not go off completely, but this may help.
 
arcsbite said:
as you're putting the mac to sleep hold a torch or your desk lamps bulb towards the gray apple apple logo on the macs chin.

The apple contains an ambient light sensor, the less light in the room, the brighter the sleep light will become...

..therefore the more light you give it, the dimmer it will be, the light will not go off completely, but this may help.
Click to expand...

Does it only check the ambient light at the point of going to sleep? I thought it was constant, so as the room gets darker, the light gets brighter and vice versa - so wouldn't you have to leave the torch on all night? :confused:
 
Far as I was aware, the sensors in the laptops were constant as they

"With its ambient light-sensing system — the sensors are tucked away under the speaker grilles — the PowerBook senses the light available to you and automatically adjusts both the brightness of the display and the level of keyboard illumination."

but the iMac sensor was just for things like the sleep light brightness

could be wrong though lol.
 
Umm, the ambient light sensor works the other way around. More ambient light -> brighter sleep light and vice versa. It's job is to keep the light visible at all conditions while keeping it in sensible limits in darker ambiances. A bright, daylight visible light would irritate everyone in the pitch black.

Also, it's constant, it checks the ambient light almost constantly. The sensor in the iMac Core Duo isn't located in the grey Apple logo, it's on the right side of it, in the underside of the unit. When feeling with fingers it's about a fingerwidth right from the memory expansion slot screw, a hole can easily be felt there.

I used my cellular phone to test it in the dark: modern cellular displays emit so much light the sensor thinks it's daytime and yanks up the brightness. A flashlight will most likely do the trick even better.

Hope this helps and clarifies.
 
designed said:
Umm, the ambient light sensor works the other way around. More ambient light -> brighter sleep light and vice versa. It's job is to keep the light visible at all conditions while keeping it in sensible limits in darker ambiances. A bright, daylight visible light would irritate everyone in the pitch black.

Also, it's constant, it checks the ambient light almost constantly. The sensor in the iMac Core Duo isn't located in the grey Apple logo, it's on the right side of it, in the underside of the unit. When feeling with fingers it's about a fingerwidth right from the memory expansion slot screw, a hole can easily be felt there.

I used my cellular phone to test it in the dark: modern cellular displays emit so much light the sensor thinks it's daytime and yanks up the brightness. A flashlight will most likely do the trick even better.

Hope this helps and clarifies.
Click to expand...
The light sensor on the PowerBook/MacBook Pro manages the brightness for the backlit keyboard. If it's darker the backlight is brighter.

On the iMac it decreases the brightness of the sleep light according the light in the room. The dimmer it is the dimmer the sleep light.
 
designed said:
Umm, the ambient light sensor works the other way around. More ambient light -> brighter sleep light and vice versa. It's job is to keep the light visible at all conditions while keeping it in sensible limits in darker ambiances. A bright, daylight visible light would irritate everyone in the pitch black.

Also, it's constant, it checks the ambient light almost constantly. The sensor in the iMac Core Duo isn't located in the grey Apple logo, it's on the right side of it, in the underside of the unit. When feeling with fingers it's about a fingerwidth right from the memory expansion slot screw, a hole can easily be felt there.
Click to expand...

Having just re-read my previous post, I realised I explained it the wrong way around. Oops!
 
Green Apple

I thought Apple was a "green" company. How can that be if they don't even give you the option of turning off the light when the computer is asleep?
 
To the OP: Unfortunately this is not an old issue complaint... it's been around since at least 10.2. It was even a problem for me back in the days when my old Apple CRT monitor with it's plastic trim leaked light everywhere (and people complain now about the iPhone light leaks ha!). I don't know if anything has changed, but there was no know software solution (or even how to approach it) back when I looked into it a couple of years ago. ...Though I seem to recall something in the System Prefs in Leopard that let you dictate the behavior of the Apple Display light... I'll look into it.

David Lorek said:
I thought Apple was a "green" company. How can that be if they don't even give you the option of turning off the light when the computer is asleep?
Click to expand...
Sigh, you do realize that buy the time it took you to type that, the energy expended by your monitor as you typed was probably enough to cover the energy needs of the small LED sleep light for at least a couple of years... :rolleyes:
 
arcsbite said:
as you're putting the mac to sleep hold a torch or your desk lamps bulb towards the gray apple apple logo on the macs chin.

The apple contains an ambient light sensor, the less light in the room, the brighter the sleep light will become...

..therefore the more light you give it, the dimmer it will be, the light will not go off completely, but this may help.
Click to expand...

It's actually the OPPOSITE the last time I checked.

The more ambient light, the brighter the light.

David Lorek said:
I thought Apple was a "green" company. How can that be if they don't even give you the option of turning off the light when the computer is asleep?
Click to expand...

LED light uses almost zero electricity. Sleep does, but OSX shuts down and starts faster than windows, which can translate to Apple = greener company than the other company with the knockoff os
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back