Externally Visible Sleep Indicator

Agree that having the side LEDs indicate standby would be nice, especially since Modern Standby doesn’t always go to sleep when you tell it to.

I found that the power LED is slightly visible when the laptop is closed if you look at it from behind like so:


However the issue with this is that I’ve found whether the LED stays on to be inconsistent while the lid is closed.

One workaround I use is disabling wake from standby upon opening the lid so I can quickly open it to check.

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When the lid is closed the power LED is off to save power.

After seeing the other comment, I tried sleeping first and then peeking… the power light breathing was visible.

When I slept the machine by closing the lid, the power light went off as described.

Just played with it a little. If I put it to sleep with the lid open (via start > power > sleep), the LED will fade in and out regardless of the lid position.

If I close the lid to put it to sleep, the power LED turns off like you said. If I open the lid (with wake on open lid disabled) the LED fading turns on and remains on even after closing the lid again.

I imagine this isn’t possible, but I’ve always been fond of how the Chromebook Pixel 2015 took the approach of keeping it’s external LEDs off in suspend unless physically disturbed (i.e. knocking on it). Always felt whimsical to knock on my laptop to see if it was in suspend.

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The Power button also acts as a system status LED, being illuminated when the machine is awake, and slowly pulsing when asleep.

When the lid of the machine is closed, this status indication is not visible.

Is it possible to enable to use of charge status LEDs to also indicate sleep status?

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I really do like this on other machines and think it would be great.

Another cool feature if the Framework has an accelerometer (might not - more commonly found in laptops with spinning drives to park the head during perceived free fall) would be a “tap to check battery” function like found on the Google Pixelbook 2017. I’m still waiting on my Framework but from reading, I’ve seen that the LED charge indicators can flash different colors to indicate POST codes. I’d love to be able to tap/lift the FW while closed and get a battery level indication

Existing thread here:

It does, but it’s disabled by default.

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Digging up an old thread.

Two years on, we still have no side LED for sleep indicator.

I’m chiming in here as I started a new thread after failing to find this one searching…

https://community.frame.work/t/request-to-add-external-indication-of-suspended-state/39877

I feel this can be achieved with a firmware update and use of the existing side LEDs…

  • Power connected, charged and active = LED solid white.
  • Power connected, charging and active = LED solid amber.
  • Power connected, charged but sleeping = LED pulsing white.
  • Power connected, charging but sleeping = LED pulsing amber.
  • No power connected and sleeping = LED pulsing amber.
  • No power connected and active = LED off.

The above will also work for when the laptop is mainly used when “docked” as the LEDs play the same role.

This should be present on BOTH sides (not just the side the power is connected to, as might as well use both available LEDs and it’s handy to glance the status from either side.

If anyone knows the official place to suggest firmware/BIOS additions/changes, please let us know here.

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There is currently an external indicator of charge state via the small LED in between the expansion ports.
There is also an internal indicator of the suspend state via the light around the power button.

But, when the lid is closed there is no way to see if the laptop is suspended or powered off.
If the external charge LED was able to slowly pulse when the laptop is in a suspended state, this would resolve the issue.

I have had a search amongst the forums but can’t see anyone else suggesting this. It seems, to me, that this is something that could be implemented via a BIOS update.

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Yes, this would be very appreciated!

Came to the forums for exactly this. Seems there are a few threads on it already, with the following being the result of some merge?:

Regardless of how many threads there are already for this, I find that this is a rare thing I’m missing on my brand new framework 13 coming from a thinkpad (that pulses the dot on its “i” when suspended). The simple knowledge that it’s peacefully suspended instead of powered on with the lid closed is great, there doesn’t seem to be a current way of determining that…

I’m glad it’s not just me. And thank you for digging out the other thread (my searching must not be as good as it once was).
I’ll add my thoughts to that one too.

I feel this can be achieved with a firmware update and use of the existing side LEDs…

  • Power connected, charged and active = LED solid white.
  • Power connected, charging and active = LED solid amber.
  • Power connected, charged but sleeping = LED pulsing white.
  • Power connected, charging but sleeping = LED pulsing amber.
  • No power connected and sleeping = LED pulsing amber.
  • No power connected and active = LED off.

The above will also work for when the laptop is mainly used when “docked” as the LEDs play the same role.

This should be present on BOTH sides (not just the side the power is connected to, as might as well use both available LEDs and it’s handy to glance the status from either side.

If anyone knows the official place to suggest firmware/BIOS additions/changes, please let us know here.

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This is amazing, hope Framework can push this or a version of it in a firmware update.

Yes, an external indicator would be very useful - I too miss this feature from my old laptop (a Thinkpad).

I like @moody_influence’s suggestion (but I have no idea if it’s technically possible).

Right now the only way for me to tell if it’s asleep when the lid is closed is by pinging the machine - if ping gets a response, it’s probably asleep… (of course this is also a good sign because it means that the laptop is so silent that you can’t tell by ear if it’s running)

In the 13 body machine at least, the bezel leaves a small gap on the bottom of the lid (back of the lid when closed) through which the LED is visible when suspended, when looking at the closed laptop from that side.

On that body with the AMD platform at least, the LED does keep pulsing when s2idle sleeping. Interestingly BTW the pulse pattern changes when the lid is closed. Instead of the “normal” single pulse when the machine starts sleeping with the lid still open, it switches to a double pulse.

Anyway, I think a trick mod would be to add a light refractor/diffuser in that gap to direct it to the side of the lid:

Edit: Looking at the lid-closing movement, it gets too tight during the close so sticking the diffuser to the top of the body just to the right of the power button might be a more feasible option. A modified bezel would also work but that’s more involved.

That doesn’t always work for me.
It seems to work when I send the laptop to sleep and then close the lid.
But when I close the lid and it goes to sleep automatically, the powerbutton LED goes and remains off

On Fedora 39 a simple script can indicate with one of the side leds that the the FW 13 intel has been suspended to RAM.

Install fw-ectool first

For instructions see:
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/bsvh/fw-ectool/

Then, add a simple systemd script in :
usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep/
And name it e.g. leds. Make the script executable.

#!/bin/sh
## location : /usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep/leds
if [ "${1}" == "pre" ]; then
  ectool led right blue

elif [ "${1}" == "post" ]; then
  ectool led right auto
fi

As a result, when the laptop is in a suspended state, the right side led will show blue.

As simple as that!

Kind regards,

Otto

6 Likes

That’s… impressive. I feel this should be pinned as a “bonus” step in the Fedora setup guide.