After a day of using my new Framework laptop, the light around the power button/fingerprint reader is the biggest annoyance. It’s very bright and doesn’t dim or shut off with the keyboard backlight, and being so close to the screen, it is constantly in my field of view.
Is the light controllable by the EC and if so, can there be a BIOS option to disable it? I hoped disabling the fingerprint reader in the BIOS would disable the light, but it didn’t.
Hi @jcs the light is PWM controlled by the EC. Right now we do not have a way to control the brightness in software/bios however. I will add it to our backlog.
Following this thread because as a fence-sitter it’s something I am interested in seeing a resolution to. In photos the lit up square LED does seem quite bright and distracting. If one is not using the fingerprint reader a workaround might be to cover up the power button with a sticker, or perhaps the design of how the LED works, if it’s like the keyboard, the LED likely is a separate component or circuit trace and perhaps the power to it could be cut or disconnected if there is a wire separate from the reader.
+1 to wanting to be able to deactivate or dim the power button. Any updates on this?
Thanks!!
Another +1 to turning this off! I just got mine and I use it mostly in bed at night, I can see the light getting pretty annoying.
Thankful that, after a few days use, this is the only ‘issue’ I have. Hope that it stays that way. And that ultimately we get a BIOS update that allows control / customisation of the power button illumination.
Tacking my +1 on here as well! I hope this can end up being configurable from the BIOS. It is pretty bright!
If there is someone here who knows electronics, maybe they could take a look at the traces and see if the light is on a separate circuit as that of the power button on/off state/fingerprint reader. If it’s a separate circuit, then all that is needed is to cut the circuit going to the LED. It could be re-connected again down the road with solder.
Framework, if you put in a bios option, please don’t solve the brightness by using PWM to dim it, you will get more flickering-related complaints from people. It needs to be completely off, not pulsed.
Dimming the power button is a feature that will be added in bios 3.05
Jumping on this thread. Any possibility in the future of being to assign different functions to the power button light, either say SSD activity or make it user controllable via some method for notifications etc?
Just wanted to add another voice to say, this is my biggest problem with the Framework laptop.
Can’t wait for 3.05.
Do you know when that might be considering we are still on 3.03 beta?
+1 would love to see this addressed. It is way too bright in a dark room.
It’s already been addressed in Bios 3.06 beta. But IMO we should have the option to make it less bright than the options given or to completely turn it off.
+1 for an “off” option. The 3.06 BIOS option to set it to “low” is a step in the right direction, but it still quite bright and “off” is much desired.
I think in a future hardware design, this key should move to being backlit. Right now there’s line-of-sight to the lights, as opposed to the backlit, indirect lighting for all the other keys. This makes it stand out much more even with a low light setting.
Loving my Framework, would really love to turn off that light too. I use my laptop a ton in the dark, even the bios settings in 3.06 has not made it dim enough for me.
Is there a way to change the color from white to something else?
Linux-only and not a permanent solution but community tinkering is being done with the EC: