Indicator LEDs

[Grench]

Don't forget that a color LED can convey more information than just light frequencies (colors).

Flashing slow

Flashing fast

Fading on/off

Cross fade to other colors

Color sequences

You could even have it do Morse code and read a novel to you.

It could, relatively easily, show the status of 8 different things over the course of 2 seconds.  Each of the following could show for 1/4 second:

1/4 second Green or Red - device is on/off.  If 1/4 sec red flash, the rest may not show.

1/4 second Orange or off - wifi is on/off.

1/4 second Blue or off - Bluetooth is on/off.

1/4 second Purple or off - WAN is on/off

1/4 second Yellow or off - USB in enabled/dissabled

1/4 second flashing green/orange/red - battery >= 75% charge / battery >25 and <75% charge / battery <= 25% charge

1/4 second flashing alternating green/orange/red with white - same as above but plugged in and charging.

1/4 second of off to show end of sequence

(above is an off the cuff example only - specifics could be worked out later and should be programmable in software).

 

[Neelix]

Urgh!   Thanks, but no thanks.  That sounds like a usability nightmare to me.     Again,  It's one of those things that might sound good in theory, but falls down in practice.  Way too much information being presented far too quickly, making it difficult to process and difficult to filter.

- Neelix

 

[EvilDragon]

It would make more sense to use it to show activity then a general "it's on".

Then the blinking and the different colors wouldn't be an issue.

E.g. unless you copy from one sd card to the other one, you rarely have activity on both. And with Wifi activity, you probably also don't have any 3G activity.

 

[Neelix]

If it came to it I think I'd have to choose power over activity for the radio indicators.  I don't want to be relying on the off chance that some application is transferring data to be able to see if the radio is on or off.   With the Pandora I can check with a glance to see if I've left the wifi on, at times when It seems less likely that I'll need to use it in the near future. 

That being said I'd prefer not to have to make that choice.  If each function has its own LED it can be on or off it indicate power and flash or not to indicate activity, without any ambiguity regarding what function it is causing the LED activity.

- Neelix

Edit: Also unless powering the 3G and WiFi radios is mutually exclusive I think it to be highly unlikely that there won't be times when both are in use.

 

[_wb_]

One led per function is not a good idea in my opinion. There are just too many things: left SD, right SD, internal SD/eMMC, wifi, bluetooth, 3G, GPS, HDMI, charging, power, and why not left big USB, right big USB, microUSB, unread emails, IM messages, etc etc.

Also, keep in mind that each led consumes some power -- on the Pandora it is ~15mW per led.

I'm pretty sure that I can encode all the status and activity I want to see in some kind of nice flickering flame pattern that looks good while it still contains all the information in a reasonably unambiguous manner.

 

[God Ginrai]

One led per function is not a good idea in my opinion. There are just too many things: left SD, right SD, internal SD/eMMC, wifi, bluetooth, 3G, GPS, HDMI, charging, power, and why not left big USB, right big USB, microUSB, unread emails, IM messages, etc etc.

Also, keep in mind that each led consumes some power -- on the Pandora it is ~15mW per led.

I'm pretty sure that I can encode all the status and activity I want to see in some kind of nice flickering flame pattern that looks good while it still contains all the information in a reasonably unambiguous manner.

I agree that one LED per function could get to be a lot. However, I do understand wanting more LEDs. The power LED should be dedicated for power status. Then you have a LED you can use for WiFi and 3G. And lastly you have one you can use for SD access. However, this way, people don't have an LED that they can use for other purposes such as notifications, etc.

-God Ginrai

 

[Neelix]

I think the 8 requested by WizardStan should be enough.   That gives enough for Left, right, & internal storage,  the 3 radios,  power and charging.

- Neelix

 

[WizardStan]

I think the 8 requested by WizardStan should be enough.

That was single colour LEDs when I said it, to be sure; I don't want anyone getting the idea I think we can cram 8 RGB statuses in there.But I am thinking now, instead of 3 RGB LEDs, could we maybe compromise and convince ED to go 2 RGB and 3 single colour?

 

[God Ginrai]

I think the 8 requested by WizardStan should be enough.

That was single colour LEDs when I said it, to be sure; I don't want anyone getting the idea I think we can cram 8 RGB statuses in there.But I am thinking now, instead of 3 RGB LEDs, could we maybe compromise and convince ED to go 2 RGB and 3 single colour?

Evem 3 RGB and 1 single color might be useful. (Especially if some of them can be moved to the hinge so they can be seen both open and closed)

-God Ginrai

 

[Grench]

Urgh!   Thanks, but no thanks.  That sounds like a usability nightmare to me.     Again,  It's one of those things that might sound good in theory, but falls down in practice.  Way too much information being presented far too quickly, making it difficult to process and difficult to filter.

- Neelix

It would make more sense to use it to show activity then a general "it's on".


Then the blinking and the different colors wouldn't be an issue.


E.g. unless you copy from one sd card to the other one, you rarely have activity on both. And with Wifi activity, you probably also don't have any 3G activity.

My point wasn't to 'do it this way' but to stat that there are a lot more options than on/off for a color RGB LED.

3 RGB LEDs, of which one is in the back of the lid, right?

Lid LED - reserve for alarms and notifications?

That leaves two - calling them left and right arbitrarily.

Left:  Data I/O RGB LED.  Flashes a different color for each I/O path's activity.

SD1, SD2, microSD, NAND, WAN, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB OTG 3.0, USB2.0 1, USB2.0 2, eSATA, serial on charge port, HDMI, headphone (opt), mic (opt), speakers (opt), screen (opt).  Use a menu/file settings to turn them on/off.  Could be handy for troubleshooting if the screen is damaged.  If I missed any, just add them on and assign a color.  Let user pick the colors in the list assignments if they're so inclined.

Right:  Power/Battery status LED.  

Off if the unit is 100% powered off and unplugged (rare).

Light/pale green:  standby

green:  on - connected to mains, battery full

orange:  on - connected to mains, battery charging

red: on - battery error (missing?)

slow pulsating green:  on - battery discharging >=50% capacity remaining

slow pulsating orange:  on - battery discharging >15% and < 50% capacity remaining

slow pulsating red:  on - battery discharging <= 15% capacity remaining

Give me more charge/battery statuses and I can keep going - you get the idea though.

 

[WizardStan]

3 RGB LEDs, of which one is in the back of the lid, right?

As I understand there are 4 counting the one in the lid: two between the nubs and one on the power switch.I wouldn't count the one on the lid as a primary indicator though since you can only see it when closed.

 

[F_Slim]

If you need a manual to look up what the current rainbow-colored morse code of the status-LEDs means, you might as well have no LEDs at all. So keep it simple.

 

[Grench]

3 RGB LEDs, of which one is in the back of the lid, right?

As I understand there are 4 counting the one in the lid: two between the nubs and one on the power switch.
I wouldn't count the one on the lid as a primary indicator though since you can only see it when closed.

In that case - use the one by the switch for my power usage idea above (or similar) then split the I/O LEDs between the nubs for wireless communications and wired/other?  I'd still reserve the one in the lid for 'other/notifications'.

Regardless, it kind of needs it's own little application to allow the end user to tell the LEDs what they want them to do - with default settings of course.

4 RGB LEDs is -plenty- if we're remotely creative in how we use them.

 

[_wb_]

3 RGB LEDs, of which one is in the back of the lid, right?

As I understand there are 4 counting the one in the lid: two between the nubs and one on the power switch.
I wouldn't count the one on the lid as a primary indicator though since you can only see it when closed.

For most of the things I don't see why we need leds at all. Things like wifi, 3G, SD activity are better monitored using graphs than using blinking leds, and I don't really see why you can't have their status on the screen (you mostly need to check these things when you're doing desktop stuff, not when playing full-screen games).

When the lid is open, we can have task bar icons and graphs etc to show such things. To make sure you can always view the info, we could have a key or key combo that shows the info on an overlay that works even for full-screen applications.

When the lid is open, I certainly don't need a led to tell me that the device is switched on.

 

[Grench]

3 RGB LEDs, of which one is in the back of the lid, right?

As I understand there are 4 counting the one in the lid: two between the nubs and one on the power switch.
I wouldn't count the one on the lid as a primary indicator though since you can only see it when closed.

For most of the things I don't see why we need leds at all. Things like wifi, 3G, SD activity are better monitored using graphs than using blinking leds, and I don't really see why you can't have their status on the screen (you mostly need to check these things when you're doing desktop stuff, not when playing full-screen games).

When the lid is open, we can have task bar icons and graphs etc to show such things. To make sure you can always view the info, we could have a key or key combo that shows the info on an overlay that works even for full-screen applications.

When the lid is open, I certainly don't need a led to tell me that the device is switched on.

No LEDs is fine - until the screen breaks.  Then it would be nice to know what sate the unit itself is in.

Knowing if/when there is wireless activity?  Very handy.

Knowing what state the unit is in when you leave it to charge?  Very handy.

Knowing if/when the SD card slots are done writing/unmounting so you can remove them safely?  Very handy.

Knowing that when you told it to go to sleep mode that it actually did - and is still there?  Very handy.

None of it is 'needed', but most of it is good information to know.  

 

[fusion_power]

If you need a manual to look up what the current rainbow-colored morse code of the status-LEDs means, you might as well have no LEDs at all. So keep it simple.

Exactly. Nobody ready manuals today (OK, I do). So all these blink-codes are not really user-friendly at all. A solution could be an simple info-screen on the Pyra desktop that explains the LED status. However, it may be much simpler then to just show the actual status in an info screen.

 

[Binky]

until the screen breaks

If that happens, you could use the serial debug port - no doubt it will have some way to 'ping' the device

 

[God Ginrai]

When the lid is open, we can have task bar icons and graphs etc to show such things. To make sure you can always view the info, we could have a key or key combo that shows the info on an overlay that works even for full-screen applications.

No we can't. The developer of the application gets a choice on how they output it to the screen. This is exactly the reason we couldn't have the Pandora menu button act similar to XMB on the Pandora.

-God Ginrai

 

[slaeshjag]

overlay 2 is "reserved" for just that, an overlay menu. Nothing uses fb2 on the pandora afaik, and someone (Wizardstan?) had a proof-of-concept thingy that overlayed some basic graphics onto the screen.

 

[God Ginrai]

overlay 2 is "reserved" for just that, an overlay menu. Nothing uses fb2 on the pandora afaik, and someone (Wizardstan?) had a proof-of-concept thingy that overlayed some basic graphics onto the screen.

Then why is it that Exophase and everyone else said it was impossible before?

-God Ginrai