Ambient light sensor for automatic backlight adjustment?

[Hồng Thất Công]

/joking/

With a front facing camera the device could capture and measure the amount of pupil dilation of the user's eyes and adjust the backlight accordingly. Why use a light sensor when you can read the same info from the user's own eyes?

/joking/

Awesome!  This would make Pyra a whole different kind of animal  

 

[rygD]

/joking/

With a front facing camera the device could capture and measure the amount of pupil dilation of the user's eyes and adjust the backlight accordingly. Why use a light sensor when you can read the same info from the user's own eyes?

/joking/

If the screen is too dim to illuminate the user's eyes the camera may not be able to detect pupil dilation, so a light sensor would be needed to detect light levels to adjust the screen enough to illuminate the user's eyes unless it is being used as the light sensor as well.  Also, I have had difficulty using biometrics devices and software with people who have very dark irises, and I suspect the same would hold true of attempting to implement this.

not quite playing along ---> If there is a camera I will be covering it as I do with laptops and smartphones that come with cameras.

 

[Yoyobuae]

It was a joke, not a serious solution considering all potential issues.

It is totally overkill to use such a system when a cheap light sensor would probably work better ... so you can totally expect this to appear on some next gen smartphone as marketing gimmick. :lol:

 

[rygD]

I knew it was a joke.  That is why I was trying to play along with the need for the light sensor to detect the lower light level telling it to turn up the LCD backlight to help illuminate eyes for pupil dilation detection that would be used to set the LCD backlight level...

I am not sure if the full effort of my joke comes through.  Anyway, I didn't miss your joking tags, but maybe I should have used some of my own.

 

[Binky]

If the screen is too dim to illuminate the user's eyes the camera may not be able to detect pupil dilation, so a light sensor would be needed to detect light levels

Isn't a camera just a fancy, high-precision light sensor?

 

[rygD]

If the screen is too dim to illuminate the user's eyes the camera may not be able to detect pupil dilation, so a light sensor would be needed to detect light levels

Isn't a camera just a fancy, high-precision light sensor?

It is, but how are we using it in this scenario?  I consider cameras to be like better versions of our eyes, while light sensors are like the primitive detection organs and whatnot that are used by some other organisms.  I tried to clarify my joke with my later post.

 

[Yoyobuae]

Averaging all the pixels from camera input should behave similar to a light sensor, more or less. Probably good enough for an initial approximation. Once the camera can lock onto the user's eyes it can fine tune the light level accordingly.

 

[rygD]

This really does need to be implemented in a smartphone, just so I can laugh about it.

Patent the idea, quick.

 

[levi]

Cameras usually consist of millions of light sensors combined into a single imaging sensor combined with a lens and aperture.  If you can keep the aperture and the sample rate fixed you could use it as a light sensor, but you'd also have to ensure you pull the data off raw so that it's not doing any processing trickery to fix up the image.  I'll have a narrower field of view than a simple light sensor with a diffuser cap on, but at the same time it might be more able to distinguish between a light bulb and a sunny day.

Actually a better way to do it might be to let it automatically set the aperture and sample rate and read that off to get an indication of the exposed brightness.  Camera sensor pixels being generally pretty small fill up quickly, so only have a fairly narrow range of useful values.

 

[thatgui]

This really does need to be implemented in a smartphone, just so I can laugh about it.

Patent the idea, quick.

hasn't this been already implemented ? Afaik my Samsung Note 3 uses the camera for automatic backlight dimming, and it also detects wether you still look at the screen or not and triggers the lockscreen timer accordingly

 

[ekianjo]

Hmm, how often does your environmental light change while you're gaming?

People are not just gaming with their Pandoras

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

"I work at a disco club and will use my Pyra to control all the dancing lights and whatnot in the club.  Therefore, I want my Pyra to auto-adjust its brightness in milliseconds to suit the ambient light in the club"

 

[Glyph Reader]

"I work at a disco club and will use my Pyra to control all the dancing lights and whatnot in the club.  Therefore, I want my Pyra to auto-adjust its brightness in milliseconds to suit the ambient light in the club"

That sounds... wasteful.  

-Glyph Reader

 

[deadofmind]

I would really like to see one of those Pelican Imaging cameras on the pyra, high res vids PLUS being able to refocus afterwards would be awesome anyone know if you can actually buy the modules? I heard they would be about $20, but no idea where to actually get them (Plus I don't think I could hack that in, maybe someone else though). Would love to see that.

 

[Natsu]

I would really like to see one of those Pelican Imaging cameras on the pyra, high res vids PLUS being able to refocus afterwards would be awesome

We had a whole discussion, we aren't getting any camera, at least with this model.

I heard they would be about $20,

You heard this where?

 

[WizardStan]

Considering their technology is actually an array of low res cameras instead of one mega res camera I can see it being relatively cheap. A consumer can buy a 640x480 CMOS camera module, a 320x240 camera would probably be cheaper (if I could find such a thing these days), complete with lens and interface, for $5; it's possible they can produce (or acquire) just the key components for $1, making their 4x4 array within the $20 range.

That may not be the reality when it finally comes out, they'll want to make some profit too, and there's all the R&D to recoup, but I can see how they might be able to make it that cheap.

 

[deadofmind]

Read it again Natsu.

(Plus I don't think I could hack that in, maybe someone else though)

Of course I'm aware of the camera conversation. Which is precisely why i stated that I would not be able to hack it in (I'm not very technologically savvy) and maybe someone else could.

Wizard Stan, does that mean the module hasn't been released yet? I thought it had been released a while ago, it's been known about for so long.

 

[WizardStan]

Wizard Stan, does that mean the module hasn't been released yet?

The most recent release I'm seeing is here, suggesting first half of 2015.

 

[deadofmind]

Awesome, maybe after it's been released, EvilDragon maybe could update the Pyra case around first half of 2016 ^_^ I think that is a good timeline considering how fast the development of the whole Pyra itself is going.

 

[God Ginrai]

On the main PCB won't help much. If you enable keyboard backlighting, it will constantly glow into the photoresistor

 I'd put it somewhere in the lid if one was to be added. You could then wire it to the display PCB.

I personally don't like automatic backlight. I hate it when my smartphone changes the brightness all the time.

Hmm, how often does your environmental light change while you're gaming?

Mine usually doesn't

I'm not so sure how often automatic backlight would be useful for me, but an ambient light sensor could have some other uses as well. For example, it could be used for more accurate Boktai emulation.

-God Ginrai